Smallville Spider Man: Destiny
by Russkafin
Summary: A crossover between Smallville and the Spider-Man movie universe. This story was written before the film Spider-Man 2 came out, so it only follows the continuity of the first movie. Takes place between the Smallville episodes "Fever" and "Rosetta
1. Chapter One

Smallville/Spider-Man: Destiny

By Russ Dimino

Chapter One

As the bus's breaks squeaked to a gradual halt, Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan gathered up their bags and made their way to the front. They stepped out into a beautifully sunny New York City day.

"Wow," Clark said as he looked up at the towering buildings and out at the bustling streets that surrounded them. "Guess we're not in Kansas any more, huh Chloe?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "You already said that, when we really did leave Kansas, Clark." She struggled with her suitcases, which she insisted on carrying, despite Clark's offer to help her.

"I know… I've just never been this far from home before," Clark said, and they began walking down the street as the bus pulled away behind them. "It's really incredible. I thought Metropolis would have prepared me for this, but…"

"I came here once with my uncle and cousin, a few years ago," said Chloe. "We had a blast… I guess I'll have to give you the grand tour, Clark!"

Clark smiled. "I can't wait to see the Statue of Liberty. Think we'll have time to go up to the torch?"

"I don't think they've repaired it yet," Chloe said. Clark looked confused. "Remember there was that thing last year, some mutants had a fight on the torch and blew it up?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Clark said. "Wow, do you think we'll see any mutants while we're here?"

Chloe fumbled with her luggage some more. "Clark, I doubt we'll see anything here that's any weirder than what we see back in Smallville."

Clark laughed. "So, how far is it to our hotel, anyway?"

Chloe looked around for a street sign. "I think it's just a block or two, this way."

"Do you want to try to get a cab?" Clark asked, as he watched Chloe nearly trip over the straps of one of her bags.

"I told you, I've got it, Clark!" she snapped, as he stifled a laugh. He didn't seem to be having any trouble carrying his bags. "Did you even pack anything? You're carrying your suitcases like they've got nothing but air in them."

"Uh… I just pack light I guess," Clark said.

"Hmm," Chloe said. She made a look over her shoulder, still not able to find a street sign. "I wonder if we'll see you-know-who while we're in New York," she said, turning back to Clark, with a hint of excitement in her voice.

Clark looked back with a blank expression on his face. "Who?"

"Who? Clark, who did I write my essay about for the contest that won us this trip?"

"Ohhh… him," Clark said. "I don't know, Chloe, do you think he's even real? I read on-line that he's probably just something the Bugle dreamed up to sell papers."

"I highly doubt that, Clark… haven't you seen some of the pictures of him?"

"Yeah, and they look ridiculous! Come on, Chloe… somebody actually running around in blue and red tights like that? No way. It's gotta be a hoax."

"Clark Kent, I can't believe what a skeptic you are! You are never going to be a good journalist if you can't learn to have a more open mind…"

She trailed off as she finally caught sight of a street sign. She dropped her bags at her sides in defeat.

"What?"

"We've been going the wrong way," she groaned. "The hotel is back that way."

Clark went to pick up one of Chloe's bags, but she snatched it back up before he could get it. She spun around on her heels, grabbed the other bag, and begrudgingly began walking back in the opposite direction. Shaking his head, he followed behind her.

If either of them had only looked up at that moment, they would have seen the one sight that would have settled their debate… a figure clad in red and blue, swinging on a thread from rooftop to rooftop, dancing on the air as if weightless… the legendary Spider-Man, web-slinging his way around the city.

Flipping and spinning in the air, Spider-Man whizzed high above the skyline, then dropped down and landed firmly on the roof of a small café. Looking around to make sure he was not being watched, he hurriedly pulled off his mask. He retrieved his backpack, which he had stashed on the rooftop earlier, and pulled out a shirt and jeans, which he quickly slipped on over his costume.

Moments later, Peter Parker was sliding down the brick wall into the alley behind the café. He ran around front, just in time to see his friends, Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn, getting up from one of the tables along the outside patio.

"Hey guys!" Peter called out as he ran over to them. "Sorry I'm late, thanks for waiting for me!"

"Um… we didn't, Pete," Harry said, his voice cold.

Pete looked at the table they had just gotten up from, and noticed their coffee cups both empty.

"Oh."

"Sorry Pete," Mary Jane said. He could tell from her expression that she had wanted to wait for him.

"Uh, that's okay, guys. Hey, what do you say we catch a movie, then? I've got the whole afternoon free…"

Harry sighed and glanced at his watch. "Sorry, Pete. I have to take care of some business at OSCORP this afternoon, I just don't have time." He took Mary Jane's hand. "We really have to go, MJ."

They started to walk away, as Pete walked after them. "Hey, guys, come on… I mean, can't you just stay for a little bit? I wasn't that late…"

Harry's driver pulled up in a black Rolls Royce. Harry opened the door for Mary Jane. "Business waits for no man, Peter Parker," Harry said, dryly. "You just can't afford to be late in the real world, my friend."

Mary Jane cast another apologetic, almost longing look back at Peter. She slowly got into the Rolls, and Harry followed suit. He shut the door without another word, as the car drove away.

Ever since Harry had inherited his father's company, he'd had no time for Peter or anyone else. Anyone except Mary Jane. Peter couldn't help but think back to the day of Harry's father's funeral, when MJ had told Peter that she was in love with him. After the Green Goblin had put Mary Jane's life in danger once, he knew that anyone he got close to would be at risk… so he felt he had no choice but to tell her that he only cared for her as a friend.

But it seemed that doing so had only pushed her back into Harry's arms. Harry was suffering from the loss of his father, and Mary Jane, hurting from Peter's rejection, found that the two could find comfort in one another. Pete slowly slipped back into the shadows of the dark alley… Where would he find his comfort?

Back in Smallville, Lex Luthor sat at his desk, reading the latest stock reports on his laptop computer. Just then, the doors to his office flew open, and Lex's father, Lionel, entered the room with his usual sense of gusto.

"Pack a bag, son," Lionel said, with a smugness in his voice.

Lex sighed. "Another 'father-son' getaway, dad? I don't know if I can handle the excitement."

Lionel sat down across from Lex, and slowly stroked his beard. "Do you remember Harry Osborn, Lex?"

"He and I went to Excelsior Prep together," Lex said, slowly. "You and his father were business partners years ago, before you formed LuthorCorp…"

"Yes…"

"What's this got to do with me?"

"You and I are taking a trip to New York City, Lex. I need you to pay your old friend Harry a little visit."

Lex shook his head in disbelief. "Norman Osborn's barely in the ground and you're chomping at the bit to buy his company out, is that it?"

Lionel chuckled. "As I said, Lex… get packed!"


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Clark and Chloe finally got to the hotel and hauled their luggage up to room 306. It wasn't an overly fancy or especially big room, but it would accommodate them for the few nights that they would be in New York. There was only one bed, but Clark had already agreed to sleep on the fold-out couch.

"So what do you want to do once we get unpacked, Clark?" Chloe asked, hoisting her suitcase up onto her bed and popping it open. "Start sight-seeing? Grab some food? Or just lounge around poolside downstairs?"

Clark unzipped his duffel bag and started rummaging through it. "I dunno," he said, absently. "I told Lana I'd give her a call, let her know we got here okay."

"Oh… good idea."

Lana. Even though she and Chloe had gotten to be really good friends over the past year, what with Chloe and her dad taking Lana in when her aunt moved to Metropolis, Chloe could never help but feel a pang of jealousy whenever she heard the girl's name.

Chloe had had a crush on Clark for almost as long as she had known him. More than a crush, in her mind… she was in love with him. But, no matter what she did, or how close they got, it seemed there was only one girl that Clark had his eyes on, and that was Lana Lang.

It was only a few weeks ago, when Clark had gotten very sick… Chloe revealed her feelings to him while he was asleep. In his delirium, he called out Lana's name. Chloe was crushed… but, when she learned that she had won the Daily Bugle's Writers of the Future essay contest, and could bring a friend to New York, she saw it as her chance to spend some time alone with Clark, away from Lana, and maybe get a chance to profess her emotions while the farm boy was awake this time.

Clark reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a small framed photograph, and set it on the table next to the couch. It was a picture of Clark and Lana, from their day trip to Smallville Falls the previous summer. She was giving him a playful kiss on the cheek, and he had a big grin on his face.

"You know," Chloe said, closing her suitcase back up again. "There'll be plenty of time to unpack later. I'm gonna go check out the vending machines."

"Sounds good," Clark said, picking up the phone and rummaging through his wallet for his phone card.

Chloe walked silently out of the room. Maybe this trip wasn't going to be all that she'd hoped it would.

Meanwhile, across town, Peter walked into the house that he currently shared with his Aunt May.

"I'm home," he called out, as he sifted through the mail that sat on the coffee table.

"Oh, Peter! I didn't think you'd be home for dinner," she said, as she walked in from the kitchen. "I thought you were going out with Harry and Mary Jane tonight?"

"So did I, Aunt May," Peter said, tossing the mail back onto the coffee table. "I guess Harry had some work to do, so they couldn't hang out."

"Well, you and Mary Jane could have still spent some time together," Aunt May said, with that familiar over-eager twinkle in her eye.

"Mary Jane and Harry got back together, Aunt May, you know that," he said.

"Oh, they're just friends, dear," Aunt May insisted.

Peter turned away so she wouldn't see him roll his eyes. Any time she wanted Peter to get together with someone, anyone else was "just a friend," despite any evidence to the contrary.

"No, I'm pretty sure they're not just friends, they got back together a few weeks ago."

"Oh, dear," she said. "Well, Peter, I'm sure she will come around sooner or later, and realize that you are the right man for her."

She's only trying to help, Peter had to think over and over to himself. "So what do you want to do for dinner?" he asked.

"Well, I wasn't planning on fixing anything," she said. "I was just going to warm up a TV dinner for myself, and watch the evening news."

She turned on the television. There was a story about Spider-Man catching some criminals who robbed a bank that afternoon… which is where Peter was when he should have been having coffee with Harry and MJ.

"Oooh, that awful Spider-Man again," Aunt May said, clicking her tongue. "Tsk tsk… you know the Bugle says that he commits these crimes himself, and then makes it look like he was the hero all along!"

Peter shook his head in defeat. "You're right, Aunt May. That's probably what he does. I'll be up in my room for awhile."

He trudged up the stairs to his bedroom. He wistfully remembered the days that he and Harry had shared an apartment together. When Harry moved into his father's mansion, Peter couldn't afford the place by himself any more, and had to move back home with his aunt. He did love her, very much… but her irrational hatred of Spider-Man and constant doting drove him quite literally up the wall. Peter climbed up the wall of his bedroom and curled into a ball on the ceiling. Maybe he'd just take a nap up here, and try to forget about Mary Jane for one evening.

The Osborn Mansion. Mary Jane stirred softly in her sleep, her head resting on Harry's chest. Harry Osborn himself could not sleep. He couldn't remember a single night that he had slept soundly since his father's death. The image of Spider-Man standing over his father's dead body haunted him constantly, especially in the early hours of the morning. He looked at the clock. 4:17 AM.

He breathed in the smell of Mary Jane's soft red hair. She smelled just as lovely as she looked… and yet even her warm embrace could no longer bring Harry the comfort that he needed. He gently slid his arm out from behind her, and snuck out of bed.

Wrapping his bathrobe around him, he began to wander around the mansion, as he often did on these restless nights. Sometimes he half expected to see his father sitting in the living room, waiting for him.

Harry stood in front of the empty fireplace and stared up at the portrait of his father. He closed his eyes, and pictured his father's face. "Dad," he whispered. "What am I supposed to do? I can't run OSCORP all by myself… I wish you were here to show me what to do."

"Harry…"

His eyes flew open. His father's voice. He had just heard it, he was sure of it. His father was whispering his name.

"Harry…"

There it was again.

"Dad!"

"Harry… behind the picture…"

Harry started to shake. What was happening? What was behind the picture? Was he losing his mind?

"Behind the picture, Harry…"

Harry reached above the fire place, and took down the portrait of his father. Behind it was a brick that was lighter in color than the other bricks in the wall. He looked around. Was this some kind of joke?

Reluctantly, he pressed the brick into the wall… with a soft whine, the back of the fireplace slid away, revealing a secret passageway. Harry dropped the portrait and backed away. What was going on?

"Harry…" the voice called his name again. It was definitely his father's voice, and it was definitely coming from the passageway.

Harry crouched down and carefully made his way through the dark, damp passageway. He felt himself moving gradually downward, and spiraling around… he was somewhere far beneath the mansion now. He could just barely make out a light in the distance, at the end of the passageway.

As he got closer to the end, the passage widened, and he found he no longer needed to crouch to fit through the passageway, and could walk fully upright.

He finally reached the end, and found himself in a gigantic, dome shaped room with white walls. A gigantic video screen filled up the bulk of the room, and on the screen was his father's face, static and unmoving.

A laser beam from the ceiling passed over Harry's eyes.

"Identity confirmed," a computerized voice reported. "Welcome, Harry Osborn."

The image of his father on the video screen sprang to life. "Harry. If you are watching this video… it means that I am dead."

Harry looked around the room. What was all of this? What did this all mean?

"You have a legacy to carry on, Harry. A legacy far more important then even OSCORP… the true legacy of the Osborn family."

Part of the wall slid away, revealing interior blueprints of the OSCORP facility. The blueprints revealed hidden areas of the plant, with what looked like weapons arsenals inside.

"Harry… you must become the next Green Goblin."


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The Daily Bugle.

J. Jonah Jameson was screaming into the telephone at an advertiser who had a problem with one of his recent controversial editorials, peppering his speech with adjectives that would certainly never be printable in his or any other newspaper.

Joe "Robbie" Robertson cautiously entered the office of the temperamental editor in chief. "Jonah?" he said. "A minute of your time?"

Jameson held up his index finger as he finished chewing out the man on the phone. He slammed down the receiver, and shifted his attention to Robbie as he lit a cigar. "What is it, Robbie?"

"Chloe Sullivan is here, sir."

"Who?"

"The girl who won the Writers of the Future essay contest?"

Jonah's face lit up. "Send her in!"

Robbie left and returned with Chloe and Clark. Jonah sat with his feet on his desk, puffing away at his cigar.

"Chloe Sullivan! Congratulations, my dear! Your essay was positively brilliant, young lady! Let me shake your hand!"

Chloe, embarrassed but smiling, stepped forward and shook Jonah's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jameson. This is my friend, Cla"

"You're a woman after my own heart, Miss Sullivan! Straight! To the point! Not afraid to tell it like it is, call it like you see it, cut the crap and lay it all on the line!"

"Um… well, thank you sir, I'm flattered that you think"

"Yours was the only essay that had the guts to say what I've said from the very beginning!" Jonah got to his feet and spread his hands as if envisioning a headline.

"Spider-Man! A Criminal! A Menace To Society! A Masked Plague on the People of New York!"

"What? But, Mr. Jameson, I didn't"

"I like your style, Miss Sullivan! Keep it up and there'll be a job for you at the Daily Bugle one day!"

"Mr. Jameson!" Chloe said, firmly. "I'm sorry, but… apparently you didn't get the point of my essay."

Jameson's cigar drooped to one side of his mouth. "Eh?"

"My point was that we should be ashamed to live in a society where heroes like Spider-Man feel they need to hide their faces behind masks, to protect themselves… not that he's a menace for doing so. I'm afraid you didn't see my point at all."

For once, Jameson was speechless. This only lasted a moment, however. "Robbie!" he bellowed, turning his back on Chloe. "Get that advertiser back on the phone, I wasn't through with him!"

"Jonah," Robbie said. "Chloe and Clark are here because the prize for the essay contest was that they get to follow a reporter around for a day and see how he does his job."

Jonah tapped his foot impatiently. "Robbie, I don't have time for this."

"I was just wondering who you'd like to send them on assignment with, sir."

At that moment, a man burst into the room, past Robbie, Chloe, and Clark and slapped a note on Jonah's desk.

"You killed my Daredevil story!" the man yelled.

"Take it easy, Urich. Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Jonah, I am really close on this one, just give me a little more time… you can't kill this story on me, not this time."

"I'm not wasting any more copy space on unsubstantiated rumor, Urich."

"Daredevil is real, and I can prove it. You know, the Post doesn't think my stories are trash. In the last three weeks alone I've gotten offers"

"Then go work for the Post for all I care, Urich. You can chase Daredevil on your time, not mine."

Urich turned away in disgust and walked out of the room. "Asshole," he muttered under his breath.

"I heard that."

Jonah puffed cigar smoke into the air. Then he noticed Clark and Chloe still standing in front of his desk, looking awestruck at what they'd just seen.

"Urich! Get back in here!" Jonah boomed.

Urich poked his head back into the office.

"I may have an assignment for you after all..."

Back in Smallville, Lex and Lionel sat in the back of the helicopter that was flying them to the airport, where their private jet was being fueled.

"You know, dad," Lex said, running his finger casually down the side of the window. "I don't suppose you expected me to convince Harry to sell OSCORP to you purely out of the goodness of my heart?"

Lionel grinned. "You're a Luthor, son. I never even entertained the notion."

Lex slowly rolled his head from one side to the other. "What is it this time, dad? Bribery or blackmail?"

The elder Luthor put his hand over his heart, as if wounded. "Such terms… I was merely going to suggest a business proposition, son."

Lex folded his arms and looked at his father, expectantly.

"CADMUS Labs," Lionel said. "You and I have been butting heads over what to do with that particular piece of property for months now. For some reason, you seem insistent on keeping it running, while I have no use for it and would rather see it shut down and sold. Since we have equal ownership of CADMUS, we seem to be at a stalemate."

"I know all this. Get to the point," Lex said, flatly.

"If you convince Harry Osborn to sell his company to me, I will sign over full ownership of CADMUS Labs to you, no questions asked."

Lex stared straight ahead. He had been funding a private research team out of CADMUS for months, analyzing his findings from the caves beneath Smallville. He was sure his father didn't know what he'd been doing with the lab, only that he was putting it to some personal use. Yet, Lionel had been trying unsuccessfully to shut it down almost from the beginning. Why would he give it up so easily?

"Do we have a deal, son?"

Lex turned and looked his father in the eye. He knew the gleam that he saw there all too well. His father knew something about OSCORP that no one else did… and he wanted it very badly.

Harry Osborn walked through the abandoned sub-basement of the OSCORP factory. Tables had been overturned, papers and broken glass littered the floor. In the center of the room was an empty chamber, large enough to hold a man, with the front totally blown out of it. Inside the chamber was some kind of vertical slab, with straps on it that seemed designed to hold someone down. Various machinery that seemed to have been once used for monitoring vital signs were laid to waste, broken and beaten in like the rest of the equipment in this deserted laboratory.

"This is where you did it, isn't it dad?" Harry said aloud. "This is where you became the Green Goblin."

Harry started digging through some of the rubble. He lifted up a large shelving unit that had toppled over. Underneath it was a rack of glass vials. Most of them had shattered and broken, seeping some kind of putrid green ooze all over the concrete floor.

One of the vials was intact.

Harry picked it up and slowly turned it over in his hands.

"This was the serum you were working on… the enhanced strength serum, that was supposed to get you that defense contract…" He looked up at the broken frame of the glass chamber. "That's what turned you into the Goblin…"

Harry rose to his feet, and walked inside the chamber.

"I can almost feel what you must have felt… the power… the strength…" He ran his hands over the straps of the hard metal operating slab. "You were going to show them all, weren't you? Show them not to mess with Norman Osborn… that they couldn't shut you down…"

Unbeknownst to Harry, as he was walking through the chamber, much of the equipment in that lab was still functioning, acting to specifications that Norman Osborn had set shortly before his death. Harry's weight was being measured by a hidden pressure-sensitive mechanism in the floor. Sonar devices were recording his voice patterns. A video unit with a facial recognition program was trained on his every move.

Once the systems in place had confirmed Harry Osborn's identity, thick steel walls slid down from the ceiling, enclosing the chamber inside an impenetrable cube.

"What the!"

"Harry," Norman Osborn's voice boomed through a loudspeaker in the ceiling. "Welcome to your destiny, my son."

Gas seeped in through a grate in the floor. It began to pour in rapidly, filling the chamber. At first, Harry recoiled in horror. Then he realized that this was just what his father went through… the very transformation that he was about to go through as well. His horror became a rush of excitement.

He held the vial above his head and snapped it open, letting the liquid inside pour down into his mouth. It ran down his face as he savagely threw the empty vial against the wall, shattering into hundreds of tiny fragments. As the serum raced through his veins and the gas filled his lungs, Harry fell to his knees, shaking in fits of violent, uncontrollable laughter.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Betty Brant handed Peter Parker his latest paycheck with her usual polite smile. As he thanked her, he snuck a quick look at the amount printed on it, and tried to do some mental arithmetic as to just how long this latest addition to his bank account was going to last him.

As he folded the check and slipped it into his pocket, a tingling in the back of his head warned him to take two steps to the right. In so doing, he narrowly avoided being bowled over by Ben Urich, who came charging out of Jonah's office swearing under his breath.

"Whoa… everything all right, Mr. Urich?"

The fuming reporter stopped for a moment, and exhaled loudly. "Yeah, Pete, everything's great. Apparently our esteemed editor in chief thinks I make a better babysitter than reporter."

Peter noticed Clark and Chloe, following reluctantly behind Urich.

Clark extended his hand. "Hi," he said. "I'm Clark Kent."

"Peter Parker." They shook hands.

Chloe cleared her throat.

"Oh… sorry," Clark said. "This is my friend Chloe."

Peter shook Chloe's hand as well.

"Chloe Sullivan," she said. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Peter said, with a warm smile.

Urich looked at his watch. "Wow, would you look at that? It's Beer O'Clock. I'll see you rugrats later."

They exchanged glances as Urich walked out of the room.

"Is he always so…?" Clark searched for the right word.

"Yeah," Peter said. "He usually is. But, he's a real nice guy if you get to know him. And one of the best reporters the Bugle has."

"And what do you do here, Peter?" Chloe asked.

"Oh, I'm a photographer," he said.

Chloe's jaw dropped. "Wait a minute! Peter Parker… you're the one who takes the pictures of Spider-Man, aren't you?"

Pete laughed and looked down at his feet, embarrassed. "Yeah, that's me."

"Really?" Clark asked. "You take pictures of Spider-Man?"

"Yeah… From time to time. He and I are kind of friends I guess."

Chloe looked at Clark and smiled. "That's very interesting… Clark here doesn't believe in Spider-Man."

"Is that right?"

"I… never said I didn't BELIEVE in him… I mean, you make it sound like he's The Easter Bunny or something…" They all laughed.

"Well, Peter, why don't you tell your friend Spider-Man that if he wants to swing by sometime, I'd love to interview him."

Peter looked confused. "Are you guys reporters, or…?"

"Oh, um… well, yes and no. I write for The Smallville Torch… it's our school newspaper." Chloe blushed. "God, that must sound so lame to you…"

"No, not at all!" Peter said. "I think it's really cool. So what are you guys doing here?"

"Chloe won the Writers of the Future Essay Contest," Clark said.

"Wow, no kidding? What'd you write about?"

Chloe rolled her eyes in embarrassment. "Spider-Man…" she said. "And, why heroes in today's society feel the need to wear masks."

"Ah, I see," Peter said, looking impressed.

"So here we are," Clark said. "We get to go on assignment with Mr. Urich later tonight."

"Where are you guys going?"

"Stark Industries is hosting some big World Science Expo tonight," Chloe said. "Mr. Jameson wants us to cover that."

"Hey, what are you doing tonight, Pete?" Clark asked. "Maybe you can come along?"

Pete smiled. "I guess I could tag along, and take a few pictures." Wow, someone was actually inviting him somewhere? It seemed like forever since any of his own friends had done that… minus the botched meeting at the café. "Hey, do you guys have plans for dinner? Maybe we can go grab a bite to eat somewhere? I can show you around the city!"

"Oh, you don't have to show us around, Chloe's been here bef" Clark was interrupted by Chloe's elbow in his ribs.

"That would be great," Chloe said with a smile.

Across the city, in the sub-basement of OSCORP, Harry Osborn emerged from his metallic cocoon, a changed man.

The rush he felt was unbelievable… but it was so hard to think, so hard to concentrate. He could not remember his name. His hands were shaking. His vision was blurred. He felt weak, but at the same time he felt energy surging through every fiber of his body.

Monitors had dropped down from the ceiling, displaying images of the Goblin armor and glider. Yes, that was right… the Green Goblin. That's who he was. It all became clear now. His father was the Green Goblin. Spider-Man killed his father. Now he was the Green Goblin. Now he would kill Spider-Man.

His vision slowly cleared, and the feelings of dizziness and unease passed. He was pure strength, pure energy now. He practically leapt across the room, and stared up at the large screens that surrounded him. The display showed a spare set of armor and a spare glider, stashed away in a storage room.

Harry threw open the doors to the storage room to find… nothing?

The armor and glider were gone. The only thing left behind was the mask, lying unceremoniously on the floor, grinning up at him like a Cheshire cat.

He gritted his teeth. "Where is it!" he snarled. "Where is it?" He slammed his hand into the wall, putting a large dent in it.

Someone had taken his weapons… No matter. This was just a setback. He would find out who had taken them, and he would get them back. And then, the Goblin would finally have his glorious revenge.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

The Reed Richards Convention Center stretched as far as the eye could see, and then some, extending so far above their heads that they occasionally forgot they were actually indoors. Everywhere they looked, new advances in technology surrounded them, to the point that they almost felt like they'd stepped into a Sharper Image catalogue.

"Do you think we'll ever see any of this in our lifetime?" Chloe asked.

"I don't know…" Clark said. He glanced at one booth that displayed a prototype for a green and purple battle-suit. "Some of this seems a little out there."

Peter snapped a few pictures. "Have you guys seen Mr. Urich?"

"I think he already came and went," Clark said. "He said he'd seen enough after about 5 minutes."

"I like your camera, Pete," Chloe said. "Though I can't remember the last time I've seen anything non-digital this millennium!"

He grinned. "I just like using film. I have a darkroom that I set up in my room at home, so I can develop it myself."

"Wow, that's really awesome… Gosh, you're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

"Peter!" A voice called out from some ways behind them. They turned to see a young red-headed woman running to catch up with them.

"Mary Jane? What're you doing here?"

"Have you talked to Harry at all today?"

"No, I haven't talked to him since the other day… what's up?"

"He left this really strange message on my machine this afternoon… he said something about the science fair, and about his father? It didn't make any sense."

"Wow… that's really weird."

Mary Jane noticed Clark and Chloe, and introduced herself.

"Nice to meet you," Clark said. "So, are you guys…?" Clark asked.

Peter and MJ exchanged embarrassed glances.

"Uh… no," Pete said, looking down.

"We're just friends," Mary Jane said, with a nod. She looked back and forth between Clark and Chloe. "What about you guys?"

"Us?" Clark sounded almost surprised. "No, we're just friends, too."

"Yeah," Chloe echoed, biting her lip. "Just friends."

Back in one of the convention center's storerooms, a man was prying open a large wooden crate with a rusty crowbar.

Another man sauntered up casually behind him, a newspaper in his hand.

"Say there," the man with the newspaper said.

The man with the crowbar was startled, and dropped the crowbar on the ground. "Jeez! What are you doing back here? The show's out there, buddy!"

The other man, who had once been Harry Osborn, and was now something more than Harry Osborn, gestured to the newspaper in his hand. "This article about the science fair today… it says something about a glider that's being demonstrated? And a set of armor?"

The man nodded towards the large crate. "Yeah, but that's not 'til later tonight, man."

"It says here that the glider and the armor are the creation of a Dr. Thomas Morrow."

"That's right. I'm his assistant."

"What's your name, friend?"

"It's Robert."

"Robert, didn't Dr. Morrow used to work for Norman Osborn at one time?"

Robert smiled. "Yeah. What do you know about it?"

Harry leaned in very close. "You can be honest with me, Robert. He stole this suit and glider from Norman Osborn, didn't he?"

Robert laughed. "Dr. Morrow was one of the guys who helped Osborn design it, I guess."

"And he stole it."

"Well…" Robert looked uncomfortable. "He didn't steal it, I mean, Osborn's dead… and Dr. Morrow helped design the thing, so, he figures it's just as much his as anyone else's now, y'know?"

Harry folded the newspaper and stuck it under his arm. Robert turned and picked up a handkerchief, and wiped his brow with it.

"And who is it that's going to be demonstrating this tonight? You know, putting on the armor, and flying the glider?"

"That'd be me," Robert said. "And I gotta tell ya… zipping around on that glider is a real head rush, man… it's a hell of a thing."

"I'm sure it is," Harry said. He stomped his foot down on the crowbar, causing it to flip upward into his hand. The newspaper fell to the ground, it's pages scattering everywhere as Harry brought the crowbar down hard on the back of Robert's skull. The sound of the metal cracking bone was so sickeningly sweet…

Harry wiped the blood that had splattered up off his face with his left sleeve. Then he turned his attention to the crate before him, which held his destiny inside.

"Ah, Robert," he said, to the deceased assistant before him. "If you only knew of the extreme chaos that is to come." He tossed the crowbar aside with a clank, and tore open the crate with his bare hands.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Professor Thomas Morrow stood behind a podium atop a large platform, directly in the center of the convention hall. He straightened his tie, and adjusted his glasses. Clearing his throat as he tapped the microphone in front of him, he waited for a few more people to join the crowd that was gathering before him.

Clark leafed through a program of events that they'd gotten at the door, while Peter and Chloe fumbled with a fold-out map.

"What's going on here?" Mary Jane asked.

"I don't know," Clark said. "I can't make any sense of this thing. You wanna check it out?"

"Sure."

Clark handed the program to Mary Jane, as the four joined the crowd gathering around the podium.

Professor Morrow cleared his throat once again. "Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to bear witness to is a true marvel of modern technology!"

Mary Jane flipped the page in the program.

The professor continued. "My name is Dr. Thomas Oscar Morrow, and I am about to show you a vision of the future. For as long as man has walked the earth, he has looked to the sky, and dreamed of being able to soar among the clouds, like a bird, or a plane."

Mary Jane flipped the page again. "I think this is it," she said, turning the program so that the other three could see the page.

There was a drawing of a man, wearing some kind of armor, riding on a glider.

Peter felt the tingle start just below his skull, and race up and down the back of his neck.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today I tell you, that dream is now a reality…"

There was a mechanical whine coming from somewhere overhead. It was getting louder.

The tingling in the back of Peter's head was going out of control now.

"Guys," Peter said, grabbing Mary Jane and Chloe by the arms. "We have to get out of here."

"Pete, what's wrong?" Clark asked.

The whine had grown louder… it was almost deafening now. Circling above their heads was a glider, like the one in the drawing… standing astride it was a man in full body armor.

The glider was sleeker and more streamlined now that Morrow had redesigned it. Morrow had also painted the armor black, to differentiate it from the all too hauntingly familiar image of the Green Goblin that had terrorized the public so recently. Harry had found some green spray paint in the back of the convention hall storage room. The wild, haphazard sprays of green over black only made the suit look even more menacing.

The helmet that Morrow had designed for the suit resembled an ordinary motorcycle helmet. Of course, Harry had brought the mask that he'd found back at OSCORP… the one his father had worn as the original Green Goblin.

He swooped down and flew in low over the heads of the crowd, as they began to shriek and run in terror. The Goblin fired off two missiles from the sides of the glider, which tore into a support column that reached all the way to the ceiling of the convention hall. Rubble began to fall from above their heads, as a small fire broke out.

"Wait!" Morrow yelled. "This… it wasn't supposed to be like this! Robert, what have you done!"

"Guess again, Poindexter," the Goblin laughed as he circled around Morrow on the glider. "You've got the real deal now, baby!"

As the panicked masses began to run from the sight of the Goblin, Peter, Mary Jane, Clark, and Chloe all became separated in the crowd. Peter made a mad dash for the nearest rest room, so he could change clothes, all the while wondering how this could be that the Goblin had returned. MJ said Harry had mentioned his father on the phone… could Norman Osborn be back from the dead?

"What's the matter, Dr. Morrow?" The Goblin taunted the professor.

"You… You're dead!" Morrow stammered.

"No… you are." The Goblin said, smiling beneath his hideous mask. He stomped on a pedal on the glider, and an orange sphere popped up into his hand. "Glad to see you didn't skimp on the pumpkin bombs when you redesigned the glider, Doc."

The Goblin pressed the pumpkin bomb up against Dr. Morrow's chest, and held it there.

"What are you!"

The explosion echoed loudly throughout the convention hall as the doctor was literally blown apart by the force of the blast. The Goblin was sent reeling backwards, thrown free from the glider. He landed hard on the concrete floor, the left arm of his green and black armor ripped clean off, his arm badly burned. He lay there laughing hysterically as people rushed past him towards the exit.

"Chloe!" Clark yelled out, looking frantically for his friends. "Peter? Mary Jane?" Even with his heightened senses, it was nearly impossible to pick them out among the screaming crowd. The fire that the Goblin had started was spreading. He had to do something…

Elsewhere amidst the crowd, Chloe fumbled to get her digital camera out of her purse. Her natural journalistic instincts kicked in, long before her concern for her own safety.

The Goblin's glider returned to him, honing in on the armor's location. The Goblin picked himself up and dusted himself off, then leapt back onto his glider.

"Thank you, New York!" he called out. "You've been great!"

The glider took off, soaring straight up. He fired off two more missiles from the back of the glider, which tore into another support column, directly across from the first one. Then, as he crashed through the skylight and sailed off into the night, he dropped a few more pumpkin bombs down into the convention hall for good measure.

Peter Parker, now in full Spider-Man costume, leapt out of the men's room. He looked up just in time to see the Goblin ascending through the skylight.

The several small fires that had resulted from the pumpkin bombs had escalated into a blazing inferno, and it was spreading rapidly. Fortunately it seemed that most of the crowd had made it to the emergency exits by now, and the building's security team was assisting the stragglers. He could go after the Goblin.

He threw himself onto the nearest wall and started climbing.

No. He heard screaming.

He turned and looked out into the flames. He couldn't see anything through all the smoke… he'd have to climb higher. He continued scaling the wall.

There. Chloe Sullivan was trapped, encircled by the fire, with no way out…

His spider sense had been going off non stop, but now it was raging. The first support column was giving out, and part of the ceiling was caving in.

No time to think, just react. One well-placed webline from his wrist, and Spidey sailed over the fire, flames leaping at him as he crossed the blazing convention center. His arm hit Chloe's midsection as he snagged her from the ground in mid-swing, seconds before a huge mass of concrete and debris decimated the spot where she'd just been standing.

They landed near one of the exits. "Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Oh, my God…" Her hand flew to her mouth. "It's you…"

"Miss, are you all right?" he repeated.

"Yes… yes I'm fine, but, my friends, I think they're still in there…"

"I'll find them, just get out of here!"

Chloe ran for the exit as Spider-Man turned and ran back into the blaze.

He couldn't see two feet in front of him. The smoke was so thick now, it burned his eyes even through his mask. He could feel the heat, his costume sticking to his body as sweat poured from his brow. No one could possibly still be alive inside of this flaming tomb.

He heard more screaming. This scream he knew.

"MARY JANE!" he called, as he ran deeper into the fire, following the sound of the screams as best he could. His spider sense told him where to move to dodge the falling wreckage, but he let most of it hit him anyway. "MARY JANE!" he called her name again. "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

The screaming had stopped. Oh, Lord, the screaming had stopped.

There was a huge pile of rubble in front of him. She couldn't be in there…

Spider-Man coughed and gagged as the smoke filled his lungs. He clawed at the rubble, trying desperately to move it, still calling out MJ's name. It was so hot… If he stayed in there much longer he wasn't going to be able to get out alive.

Something was moving towards him. He could make out a figure, faintly, through the smoke. Beneath his mask, Peter Parker squinted his eyes, and tried to fan the smoke away from his face.

The figure stepped forward, and finally came into full view.

It was Clark Kent. He was covered in soot and ash, but he didn't have a single scratch or burn mark on him.

In his arms, he held an unconscious Mary Jane Watson.

The two men stared at each other in disbelief, the fire and smoke still raging around them.

Spider sense. He looked up. The whole ceiling was coming down now. All of it, at once.

"Get her out of here!" Spidey called out. But Clark was already gone. How in the world…?

He didn't wait around. He was barely able to get outside the building before the entire convention center imploded inward onto itself.

As the smoke continued to rise from the wreckage of the demolished convention center, Spider-Man sat perched in a treetop outside, trying to catch his breath. He thought he was rid of the nightmare that was the Green Goblin… but it seemed that his nightmares were only beginning. He stared out over the destruction that had been laid out before him. No one could have survived inside that inferno, no one except him. And yet, he had clearly seen Clark Kent, untouched by the fire.

He buried his face in his hands, and wondered when exactly it was that reality had stopped making any sense whatsoever.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

The next morning, Harry Osborn walked absently through the board room at OSCORP. Vague impressions of the previous night floated around in the back of his mind like ghosts, taunting him, not letting him fully remember what he had done. He had not been in control of his actions, and yet, he had been in total control of his actions. That had been him, and yet, it had not been him. It was a part of his psyche that had been buried all his life, the part that you keep locked away and don't even acknowledge to yourself. That's what the Goblin was. It was the part of you that was capable of hate, and of destruction, and of death… and of enjoying it all the while.

He placed his briefcase on the table and sat down. He slowly rubbed his temples. He was exhausted, as if he'd just come down from the mother of all sugar-highs. His stomach felt like it had been put through a spin cycle, and his muscles ached. He looked down at his left hand, which had been badly burned… bandages were wrapped around it, he didn't even remember doing that. If he had any sensation left in the hand it would probably hurt pretty bad.

Harry's assistant, Jason Macendale, knocked on the already open door as he poked his head into the room.

"There's someone here to see you, Mr. Osborn… He doesn't have an appointment, but he said you'd want to talk to him."

"Who is it?" Harry asked, his voice slightly hoarse.

"His name is Lex Luthor."

Harry cracked a smile. He couldn't say he hadn't been expecting this. "Thanks, Jason. Show him in."

A moment later, the bald young billionaire strolled casually into the room. "Harry Osborn," he said with a smile.

Harry smiled and shook Lex's hand. "Lex, how have you been?"

He shrugged. "Busy. Yourself?"

Harry nodded. "The same."

Lex looked around the board room. "So I see."

Harry gestured to a chair, and they sat down across from each other.

"I'm sorry to hear about your father, Harry," Lex said.

"Thank you. It's been hard, but, I'm pouring myself into the company now. Trying to carry on his legacy. I think it's what he would have wanted."

Lex looked uncomfortable. "About the company…" he said, slowly.

"I know why you're here, Lex," Harry said, flatly. "And you can tell your father that my answer is still no."

"I'm sorry?"

"Your father has already presented me with three different offers to buy OSCORP. I've refused each one. I can only assume you're here to try and change my mind."

Inside, Lex was fuming. Why hadn't his father told him that he'd already made three unsuccessful attempts to buy the company? Just to make him look like an idiot, most likely.

"In the last two weeks alone, I've gotten offers from Wilson Fisk, Tony Stark, and Adrian Toomes, and I've refused them all," Harry continued. "Though, I have to admit, none of them have even come close to offering as much for the company as your father has."

"You seem pretty adamant about not selling," Lex said.

"I am. Everyone thinks that because I'm so young, I'm not capable of running all of this by myself. If I sell, it'd be like admitting defeat."

"I know how you feel, Harry, believe me," Lex said. "Just be careful. I heard that your father didn't take it very well when the board of directors tried to vote him out… I'd just hate to see you get too involved and end up getting burned."

Harry stood up. "Sooner or later we all become our fathers, Lex. There's no escaping that."

Lex looked away and clenched his teeth. This was obviously pointless.

He stood up. "It was good to see you again, Harry."

They shook hands again.

"Still fencing, Lex?" Harry asked.

He smiled. "When I have time."

"We should get together sometime, then," Harry said. "It'd be nice to have someone to spar with again."

Lex noticed Harry's bandaged hand. He raised an eyebrow.

"You sure you're up for it?" he said, gesturing to Harry's hand.

Harry grinned. "Unless things have changed, Lex? I could always take you on with one hand tied behind my back."

"Right…" Lex narrowed his eyes and nodded. "I'll see you around, Harry."

Lex walked out of the board room, livid. His father had simply neglected to mention the previous three offers on the company. "Real nice, dad," he muttered under his breath.

Why did his father want OSCORP so badly, anyway? He'd outbid Fisk, Stark, and Toomes? LuthorCorp had always been very successful, but there was no way that Lionel had more money to throw around than those three men. And he'd offered Lex CADMUS Labs just to try and persuade Harry to sell? Something didn't make sense. Lex was more sure now than ever that Lionel knew something about OSCORP that no one else did, and he was determined to find out what.

Lex assured Mr. Macendale that he could find his own way out, and then slipped away down another corridor of the building. He was going to find out just what secrets this place held.

After nearly an hour of fruitless exploration and carefully dodging the OSCORP employees, Lex's persistence paid off. He found a stairwell that seemed to be blocked off, and cautiously slipped through. He slowly worked his way down, level after level…

What he found was beyond description. The lab in the sub-basement looked like it had been hit by a Kansas tornado. Machinery laid to waste, broken steel and twisted metal, shards of glass all over the floor…

Lex walked over to what looked like some kind of chamber… What on earth had taken place down here?

Monitors above his head displayed images of a glider, and a suit of armor.

"No way…" Lex said aloud.

He noticed the knocked-over shelving unit, and the broken glass vials. He knelt down, and picked up a shard of glass, which had some kind of green chemical residue still dripping from it.

This had to be it. Somehow his father knew about all of this. He and Norman Osborn had been business partners long ago, somehow Lionel knew that Norman was working on this, and whatever it was, Lionel wanted it bad.

Lex pulled out his cell phone and hit a number on his speed dial.

"Donovan, it's Luthor," he said. "I need a messenger brought by the hotel tonight. I have something that I need taken to CADMUS Labs to be analyzed as soon as possible."

A surge of electricity shot down Lex Luthor's spine, causing him to drop the phone. His scream was stuck in his throat and would never pass his lips. His eyes rolled back in his head, as he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Behind him, stood Harry Osborn. On his left hand, he wore a new metallic glove that he'd designed for the armor. Sparks of electricity still crackled from it. He looked curiously at his own creation. The Goblin must have built it sometime during the night.

He clenched his fist, and more energy sparked and fizzled from his palm. Oh, he was going to have a lot of fun with this one…


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

The radio on Peter Parker's alarm clock clicked on as he rolled over in bed, clinging to the last precious moments of sleep.

"Get a load of this, Robin," came the voice from the radio. "This guy we've got coming in to play Win Fred's Money today, is a professor from some college in Dunkirk."

"Where is that?"

"Who knows, sounds like some real hole in the wall if you ask me. I don't know where we find these people."

"Hey Howard?"

"Yes, what is it Gary?"

"You might want to put on the news, there's a report coming in about that Green Goblin character flying around the city again, like right now."

Peter's eyes snapped open.

"Oh, man, that whack job is back? You gotta be kidding me, I thought Spider-Man kicked his ass. Hey Gary, do you think we can get him on the show?"

"They say he has a hostage with him, they think it's that Lex Luthor guy."

"Who?"

"You know, the bald rich kid from Metropolis?"

"Oh, yeah! I think we saw him at Scores one time, didn't we Artie?"

"Yeah, he seemed like a pretty cool dude."

Peter was already in costume and out the window, web-slinging his way towards the city.

Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan awoke to the sound of a loud crash that literally shook their entire room.

Clark, wearing boxers and a t-shirt, leapt up off the couch and ran into Chloe's room to have a look out the window.

"What was that!" Chloe asked, getting out of bed herself.

"I don't know," Clark said. He pulled open the blinds.

Just outside, the Green Goblin was tearing around the city on his glider. A chain hung off the back of the glider, with an unconscious Lex Luthor suspended from it. The Goblin was purposely crashing his glider into various buildings, allowing Lex's limp body to take impact after impact against the solid walls.

"Oh my God! That thing's got Lex!"

Chloe ran to grab her camera and something to throw on besides her nightshirt. By the time she turned around again, Clark had already disappeared, leaving the door to the hotel room wide open.

In the few seconds it had taken Chloe to grab some jeans and her camera, Clark had thrown on a new set of clothes, ran down three flights of stairs and was already outside on the street. A crowd had started to gather and people were looking up at the scene taking place above their heads, pointing and shouting.

No sooner did Clark get outside than a newcomer entered the fray… Spider-Man sailed by on a webline, and landed on a rooftop just in front of the Goblin.

Spidey had no idea how he was going to deal with this. Just the night before, the Goblin had almost given him more trouble than he could handle, and he didn't even stick around to fight that time. Now he had a hostage, and it looked like the poor guy was barely alive.

"Haven't you been keeping up with the fashion pages, Gobby? No one's wearing green this year," Spider-Man called out. He might as well talk the talk, and hope that he could walk the walk when it came time.

The Goblin stopped his glider in mid-air. "Spider-Man. I knew this would draw you out sooner or later."

"Isn't this always the way with you? You never write, you never call… then all of a sudden, it's drama, drama, drama… I just can't deal with it any more!"

"Always so smug," the Goblin said. "So full of yourself."

"Me? You've got me all wrong, buddy. I don't even like myself!"

"Save the wisecracks," the Goblin said, pressing a lever on the glider with his foot. A pumpkin bomb shot up into his hand. "And see if you can save your own skin." The Goblin tossed the pumpkin bomb at Spidey and took off into the sky, circling around the rooftop.

His spider sense gave him the cues he needed to dodge the bomb, which exploded somewhere behind him as he did a double back flip. Two more bombs came his way, which were dodged with similar ease and equal style.

"I could do this all day, Goblin, really I could, but I thought we'd moved beyond this, you and I. Actually, to be quite honest, I thought you were dead."

The Goblin let out what sounded like a low growl. "You would think that, wouldn't you?"

This time he launched a rocket from the back of the glider. Spider-Man was unprepared for it and was barely able to leap out of the way in time, the resulting explosion leaving him slightly dazed. He crouched down low and placed his hands on the sides of his head and waited for the roof to stop spinning around him.

"C'mon," Spidey said when he'd gotten his bearings. "I don't care what happens between you and me, but how about letting the bald guy go?"

"Sure, why not?"

A blade shot out of the back of the glider, and the chain was severed, sending the unconscious Lex plummeting down toward the street.

"Oh, great," Spider-Man thought. He leapt from the roof and fired off a webline, swinging wildly outward. Still in a haze from that last explosion, he was barely able to find the focus to swing himself beneath the falling Luthor and catch him before he hit the ground.

They swung back upward and made a violent crash landing on another rooftop, across from where they had been but considerably lower.

Spider-Man tried to shake Lex awake. "Are you all right?"

Lex stirred, barely, but was still unconscious.

The Goblin slowly descended behind them, casually tossing another pumpkin bomb from one hand to the other.

"As much as I'm enjoying this, Spider-Man… it could get old, fast. What do you say we end it right now?"

"You kids these days, with your short attention spans." Without turning around, Spider-Man fired a web over his shoulder, which stuck the bomb right to the Goblin's hand. "Why in my day, a good super villain fight could go on for hours!"

The Goblin started flying around erratically, trying to shake the bomb off.

"And I suppose you've already heard how we had to walk 15 miles to school every day, in the snow? Uphill both ways?" Spider-Man checked Lex's pulse and breathing, and when he was sure that he was going to be okay, Spidey turned his attention back to the fight.

The Goblin had pried the bomb loose from his hand and tossed it away just before it exploded.

"Nice try, webhead," the Goblin scoffed.

"Wait, maybe you were on to something after all," Spidey said. "If we wrap this up now we can probably still make it home in time for The Price is Right."

As they continued their banter, Clark Kent watched from the street below, feeling helpless. There had to be something he could do to help… but he didn't want to call attention to himself…

A limousine pulled up just in front of the building that Spider-Man and the Goblin were currently fighting on. A tall black man wearing an eye patch stepped out, yelling into some kind of walkie-talkie radio.

"Tell me we've got somebody on this thing!"

"We're working on it, General," came the reply over the radio.

"Working on it! Where's Steve, where's Tony, where's Hank!"

"Steve is on a diplomatic mission in Latveria, sir, and Tony and Hank…"

"Tony and Hank what?"

"They went out drinking again last night, sir. They're in no shape for active duty at the moment."

"Then who the hell do we have, god damn it!"

A new voice came over the radio. "Nick, it's Clint. I'm getting into position now."

"Thank God! What's your location, son?"

"I'm on the rooftop right across from them, sir. Orders?"

Clark surveyed the rooftops with his acutely keen eyesight… he saw a man dressed in a long black trench coat running across a nearby rooftop, pulling some kind of bow and arrow from a holster on his back.

"Your orders, Clint, are to blow the hell out of that Goblin thing. He obliterated that convention hall last night, we are dealing with a severe threat to the population here, I want him taken down and I want him taken down now."

"What about Spider-Man and the bald guy?"

"Your orders are as given, Clint. Just get the job done."

With a cold dread, Clark realized that these guys were not above taking Lex and Spider-Man out along with the Goblin if they had to. He didn't wait another second. As his feet sprang into motion, the world around him seemed to freeze in place. Birds halted in flight, conversations were paused in mid-sentence, all movement simply stopped. The only thing in motion was himself, as he blew past the man with the walkie-talkie, ran into the building and up the stairwells leading to the roof.

He crashed through the doorway as he burst onto the rooftop. The man was just releasing the arrow from the bow string… it slowly began to cut through the air, heading straight for the rooftop across the way. The arrow's flight seemed to slow to a crawl as Clark made a mad dash for it, speeding right past the man, knocking him aside with a casual flick of the wrist. The man sprawled out flat on his back as Clark plucked the arrow from the air with one hand. He knew as soon as he'd caught sight of it that it was no ordinary arrow. That had to be some kind of explosive on the end of it. Clark clutched the arrow close to his chest and let it explode in his arms, taking the full force of the blast against his own body. He could feel the power of the impact, but he felt no pain… His shirt was slightly singed, but he was unfazed.

The man stared up at Clark with a bewildered look on his face.

"Clint?" The voice crackled through the two-way radio. "Clint, what's going on up there, man? Talk to me?"

The man reached for his quiver of arrows, but Clark had them in his hands before the man could lay a finger on them.

Another new voice over the radio.

"General, this is Natasha. I've got the rooftop in my sights. Do you want me to blow it?"

"Roger that, Widow, Hawkeye's gone offline… it's up to you now, girl."

Clark ran to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. Another building, across the street… a woman dressed in black had what looked like some kind of laser cannon pointed out the window at the rooftop Lex, Spider-Man and the Goblin were on.

No time to run all the way over there, even at his fastest speed he might not make it before she pulled the trigger. Instead, he focused with all of his might, setting off one good strong blast of his heat vision, which tore the laser cannon right in half.

The woman cursed in Russian over the radio.

"Natasha, what happened! Damn it, what's going on up there!"

The Goblin had apparently noticed the commotion taking place on the buildings surrounding them, and decided it would be wise to take the fight elsewhere. He swooped down and grabbed Lex by the collar of his shirt, and took off again, weaving around the buildings to hide his trail. Spider-Man followed suit, quickly firing off a series of weblines and swinging his way after the Goblin.

Clark wasn't sure he'd be able to find them again, but he was sure going to try. He sped off back down the stairs, leaving nothing but a crushed quiver, a pile of broken arrows, and one very confused soldier behind him.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Spider-Man was swinging as fast as he could, just to try and keep up with the Goblin's wild flight pattern. He was weaving around buildings, soaring up and then swooping down… Spidey was starting to get dizzy just from following him, and he was still a little groggy from that blast back on the rooftop.

They were heading back towards familiar ground… the Goblin was flying towards the demolished convention hall from the night before.

The Goblin dipped out of sight as Spider-Man approached the scorched earth and ash-covered ground that was all that remained of the previous evening's events. Spidey swung in and landed amidst the debris. He looked around. Rubble lay everywhere, chunks of concrete and brick scattered for blocks like some kind of massive graveyard. Smoke still rose from the wreckage in some places… the news said they were fighting the fire most of the night.

"Hey, Greenie, why don't you come out and show yourself?" Spider-Man called out. He was here somewhere close by, he could feel it.

He was above him… spider sense just a second too late. He went to jump, but took a pumpkin bomb to the back of the head. It went off at point blank range, sending Spider-Man reeling across the debris, landing sprawled out on his stomach, cut, bleeding and in quite a lot of pain.

The Goblin laughed like mad, circling around Spider-Man several times, taking in the view from all angles.

He looked at Lex, who he was holding by the collar of his shirt. He was still unconscious.

"It's too bad you weren't awake to see this, Lex," the Goblin lamented. "But, you'll find out soon enough what happens to anyone who crosses me." He tossed Lex aside like a piece of trash, sending him tumbling down, landing violently amidst the junk.

As the Goblin slowly descended on his glider towards the bruised and battered Spider-Man, Lex's eyelids fluttered open. He groaned, and felt the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth and running down the back of his throat. His entire body screamed with a pain he had never imagined possible. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was alive or dead, much less where he was.

He raised his head up and blinked the haze away, trying to focus. He could make out two figures… it was Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. Lex saw the Goblin pick up Spider-Man and backhand him across the face. Spider-Man looked limp and lifeless. He was either unconscious or dead.

That armor… Lex had seen it in the basement of OSCORP… Oh, God… Harry!

Lex collapsed back into the pile of rubble he'd landed in. This was not happening.

He looked around. Maybe he could shout for help? It didn't look like anyone was around.

Then he saw something, buried in the wreckage in front of him. He reached out, and brushed away the dirt and ash… he'd landed right next to something, something that had survived the convention center fire. It appeared to be some kind of battle-suit…

The Goblin smacked Spider-Man across the face again.

"Wake up! This won't be any fun if you sleep through it!"

The throbbing in Spidey's head was all he could hear… He wasn't sure if his eyes were open or closed, but he couldn't see anything but black. That bomb had gone off right next to his head. It would have killed an ordinary person. Somehow he was still alive, but, he managed to form the thought that maybe it would have been much better if he had died.

Another smack across the face. He felt it, sharp and cold, stinging. His eyes opened now. He coughed on the blood and struggled to get the Goblin's hand off his throat.

"Ah, that's much better!" The Goblin's voice echoed through his head like the Grand Canyon.

"G-Goblin…" He coughed, trying not to choke.

"Oh, Spider-Man. This was way too easy."

He dug his fingers into Spider-Man's face, hard, grabbing onto the cloth of his mask. Then, he ripped his hand back again, pulling the mask clean off.

The Goblin just stared blankly at the face beneath Spider-Man's mask.

"No…"

The face of Peter Parker.

Peter struggled to speak. "Hey man, I just rolled out of bed…" Cough. Gasp. "I doubt you're… a sight to behold… first thing in the morning… either."

"Peter! Peter Parker!"

"Y'know… Gobby… I thought we already did the whole… secret identity revelation bit?" God, his voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, he could barely choke the words out. "Have you talked to your doctor… about Alzheimer's?"

"How could you do it, Pete! How could you kill my dad? For the love of God man, we were best friends?"

How could he kill…? Oh, no. Somehow, the thought hadn't even occurred to him that the Goblin could really be…?

"Harry?" Cough… "Is that you?"

The Goblin let out a primal scream, and bashed Peter's head against the nearest rock. He saw red. The pain was unbearable… Peter started struggling against the Goblin's grip, struggling for his life as he was struck across the face, repeatedly.

"I'm going to make you pay, Peter Parker! I'll take everyone that you love away from you! I'm going to kill your stupid aunt, and I'm going to make you watch me do it! I'm going to kill everyone you've ever met or talked to or cared about in your life!"

He tightened his grip around Peter's neck. Peter couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He tried to shoot a web in Harry's face or something, but he didn't even have enough muscle control to move his fingers.

"I'll even kill Mary Jane," Harry growled. "Because I know you've loved her from day one… how's that going to feel, Pete? When you watch me kill Mary Jane, right in front of your eyes?"

Harry felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.

"Hey, Osborn."

The Goblin turned around.

"Oh… shit…"

Lex Luthor stood behind him, wearing the green and purple battle-suit that he'd found buried in the rubble.

"Shut your mouth."

Lex's fist connected hard with the Goblin's face. The Goblin mask shattered, shards of metal sticking into Harry's face as the cracked mask fell to the ground. He screamed and let go of Peter, throwing his hands up in front of him.

"You know, Osborn," Lex said, grabbing Harry by the shoulder and pulling him to his feet. "I always thought you were a whiny, stuck up son of a bitch." He slammed his fist into Harry's stomach. "And you know something?" Another punch to the face. "I was right."

One more punch to the face sent Harry tumbling onto his back. Lex ran up and kicked him in the stomach.

Harry was whimpering on the ground, holding his stomach with one hand and his face with the other.

Lex leaned in close over the beaten Goblin.

"Tell me something Osborn," Lex sneered, his voice full of quiet rage. "Still think you can beat me with one hand behind your back?"

Harry spat blood in Lex's face. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

He shoved his left hand straight into the chest plate of Lex's battle-suit, and released a violent electric charge right inside the suit's circuitry. Lex's eyes opened wide as his body went into a series of uncontrollable muscle spasms just before he blacked out.

Harry shoved the unconscious Lex aside and got wearily to his feet.

Spider-Man was gone.

He threw his head back and screamed, his entire body shaking.

The glider returned to him, and he wearily climbed on top of it. "This isn't over," he mumbled. "It's only begun." He took off into the sky.

Clark Kent caught sight of the Goblin's glider leaving the abandoned convention grounds. He sped over to the wreckage to find Lex lying unconscious, wearing the very battle-suit he'd seen at the fair the night before.

Clark knelt down beside his friend, and tried to shake him awake. "Lex? Are you okay?"

No response. Clark lifted Lex's body up in his arms, and started sprinting for the nearest hospital.

Back outside the hotel, Chloe looked up and down the street for any sign of Clark. By the time she'd gotten some clothes on and gotten outside, the fight had already moved away from the building, and Clark had seemingly vanished.

She sighed, and shrugged to herself. Guess she might as well go back to bed, and wait for Clark to return with another one of his myriad of lame excuses for running off.

There was a loud crash in the alley behind her. Something had fallen from the roof? From out of the sky?

She wanted to run, but, as usual, her curiosity got the better of her.

"Hello?" she called out, as she cautiously stepped into the alley. "Who's there?"

A muffled groan answered her.

She froze.

"Hello?" she called again.

"Help," she thought she heard, faintly.

She walked deeper into the alley. There was some rustling in the open dumpster in the corner.

Oh, God… someone was inside the dumpster?

She fought every urge she had to take off running. Ever so slowly, she crept closer… closer…

She peered inside.

There, amidst the trash, barely alive, was Spider-Man.

Chloe threw her hand over her mouth and gasped.

She recognized the maskless face, despite the bruises and the blood.

Spider-Man was Peter Parker.


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

The doctors finally allowed Clark in to see Lex.

The young Mr. Luthor was hooked up to several devices that were monitoring his vital signs, and his leg was elevated and in a cast. He had bandages around his head, and some bad scars on his face and arms.

"You look a little worse for wear," Clark said.

Lex laughed, then winced in pain. "Lucky to be alive, was how the doctors put it," he said. "Clark, what in the world are you doing in New York City?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Clark replied. "I'm here with Chloe, she won the Daily Bugle Writers of the Future contest."

"Ah," Lex said, "I remember hearing about that."

"What about you?"

"I'm here on business."

"Looks like the deal didn't go so well."

Again, Lex stifled a laugh. "Yeah, well… I didn't really plan on being attacked by the… what do they call it? Green Goblin?"

"I guess so. What did it want with you, anyways, Lex?"

Lex was silent for a minute.

"Lex?"

"I know who he is, Clark."

"What?"

"The Goblin. I know who he is. He's a former friend of mine, named Harry Osborn."

"Have you told the police?"

"Not yet. Clark, I don't want you getting any ideas. Stay out of this. I'll talk to the authorities, they'll take care of it."

Clark nodded. "Yeah. Of course." He smiled. "Listen, I should really get back and check in with Chloe, she's probably worried."

"All right."

Clark turned to leave.

"Hey, Clark," Lex called after him.

He turned around.

"See if you can find out what they did with that battle-suit…" Lex said, a familiar gleam returning to his eyes.

Peter Parker lay in the empty bathtub of Clark and Chloe's hotel room, drifting in and out of consciousness. He was aware of the fact that he'd lost a lot of blood, and that he felt like a rock concert had just taken place inside his skull.

He managed to get a grip on his surroundings long enough to notice Chloe Sullivan sitting by his side, holding a bag of ice against what was probably a particularly nasty gash across his forehead.

He reached up and touched his own face. His mask was gone. Looking down, he saw that he was still in the rest of his costume, tattered and torn though it was.

Chloe saw the look of confusion come across Peter's face. "It's okay," she whispered.

"Chloe?" he asked, confused. His voice sounded like sandpaper.

"You're going to be all right," she said.

"How did I…?"

"Shhh… just relax."

Slowly it started coming back to him. The fight with the Goblin. Getting his mask ripped off. The Goblin turning out to be Harry. Barely escaping with his life when Lex Luthor attacked Harry in that battle-suit. He must have blacked out while he was web-swinging back through the city.

Peter tried to sit up, and pain raced up and down his back, like needles digging into his spine. He winced and laid back down.

"So…" Chloe said, as Peter reached up and took the ice pack from her. "You're 'kind of friends' with Spider-Man, huh?"

Peter actually smiled. "I guess you could say that," he said, holding the ice to his forehead again.

"If you don't mind my asking… are you a…?"

"Am I a what?"

"Y'know… a mutant?"

"No," Peter said. "I'm not."

"Then how did you get your powers? It didn't have anything to do with meteor rocks, did it?"

"Meteor what?"

"Never mind. How did you get them?"

"I was bitten by a genetically enhanced spider."

Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Okay… never heard that one before." She touched his ripped up costume. "Did that Goblin thing do this to you?"

"Yes."

"What does he want?"

"He wants me. He… wants to kill me."

Chloe looked scared. "Why?"

"He thinks I killed his father."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Why does he think that?"

Peter smiled. "Is this that interview that you wanted?"

"What interview?"

"When we first met… you told me I should tell Spider-Man to swing by for an interview."

"Oh, God…" Chloe put her hands over her face in embarrassment. "No, it's not. Really, it isn't."

Peter nodded. "I know."

"Honestly," Chloe said. "…this has to be the first time I've ever stumbled across something this big… I mean, this is huge, 'Spider-Man's Secret Identity Revealed,' you know? And for the first time… I didn't just think of what a great story it would make."

"Yeah, that is funny," Peter said. "Because this is the first time that someone ever found out my secret… and I wasn't afraid that they'd use it against me."

Chloe smiled. She looked down and noticed that her hand was resting on Peter's. She looked back up at him, embarrassed, and started to pull her hand away, but he stopped her.

Slowly, he sat up, and set the ice pack on the ledge of the bathtub.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked.

"Yeah… though I gotta admit, I wish I'd gotten in the Healing Factor line the day they were handing out super powers."

She reached up and wiped some of the dried blood off of his face.

"Why do you do this?" she asked.

He looked deep into her eyes. "Someone once told me… with great power, comes great responsibility. I'm just trying to live up to that."

Chloe nodded, slowly, letting the words sink in. "Wow. That's very profound. But, just… just don't get yourself killed, okay?"

"I'll try not to."

They stared into each other's eyes for a few moments longer. Her hand was still touching his face. He reached up, and put his hand over hers. Slowly, they leaned closer to one another, and their lips touched, ever so lightly, ever so gently.

Outside the bathroom, the door to the hotel room opened.

"Chloe?" It was Clark's voice.

"Oh my God," Chloe whispered. "It's Clark."

Peter jumped to his feet, ignoring the pain that was still racing through his body. He leapt to the window and slid it open.

"Peter… be careful. Please," Chloe said.

He smiled. "I will be."

With that, he fired off a webline, and swung out over the city once more.

"Chloe?" Clark again.

The bathroom door was still closed. "I'll be out in a minute, Clark," Chloe called through the door.

She walked over to the window and watched Spider-Man swinging away. And as she felt her stomach getting heavy as she feared for Peter Parker's life, for the first time, she truly understood why a hero would need to hide behind a mask.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Peter Parker ran towards the Queens home that he and his aunt lived in. He'd changed into a spare set of clothes that he kept stashed on top of the Daily Bugle for emergencies. His head was still light, his muscles fighting him every step of the way as he ran as fast as his legs could manage in his current state. He hadn't yet thought up an explanation to give Aunt May for the bruises and cuts that covered his face. He only hoped that would be his biggest worry when he got in the front door.

All he could hear in his head was what Harry had said to him.

"I'm going to make you pay, Peter Parker! I'll take everyone that you love away from you!"

The words echoed in his mind with each frantic footstep on the pavement. He hadn't even noticed when it started to get dark out, let alone when it started raining, and he had no idea what time it was, or any concept of anything other than that he could not get to the house fast enough.

He raced up the steps and froze when he got to the door.

It was ajar. It looked like it had been kicked in.

Peter started to shake as he burst into the house. "Aunt May?" he called out. "Aunt May, are you all right?"

Tables had been knocked over. Vases and picture frames lay broken on the floor.

Peter bit his lip and shook with fear and with anger all at once.

In the living room, two words had been burned into the wall.

"THAT'S ONE!"

Peter's blood boiled with a rage he had never felt before.

He ran back out of the house at full speed, adrenaline racing through his body, his heart pounding. Harry's father, the original Green Goblin, had attacked Aunt May as well, when he learned Peter's identity. She had been lucky to survive, given her weak heart. She might not survive another ordeal like that. She was the only family that Peter had left, now that his Uncle Ben was gone.

Two thoughts occupied Peter's mind as he ran. First, that the Goblin had Aunt May. Second, that there was no doubt in his mind who he would go after next.

Mary Jane Watson was just getting ready for bed when she heard a knock at the door of her apartment.

"I'm coming," she called, pulling on a pair of sweatpants so she would not be answering the door in just her nightshirt.

The knock came again before she could get to the door.

"Who is it?" she called out, as she made her away across the living room.

There was no answer.

She looked at the clock. It was getting late, and she wasn't expecting anyone. Slowly, she tiptoed over to the door and looked through the peephole.

She couldn't see anything. Whoever was on the other side had their hand over the peephole. She began to back away from the door. The chain and the deadbolt were both locked. If she stayed very quiet, maybe whoever it was would just go away.

They knocked again.

"Oh, God," she whispered. "Please just go away…"

The door blew in off it's hinges in a fiery explosion, and smoke poured into the room as Mary Jane screamed and ran.

The Goblin stepped inside. He was still wearing the black and green armor, but the mask, which had been destroyed in his fight with Lex Luthor, was gone. Instead, he wore a green latex Halloween mask, which was even more frightening than the old mask had been.

"Avon calling," he said, wafting the smoke away as he entered.

Mary Jane ran around to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife she could find. Then she hid up against the corner of the doorway and waited for her attacker to enter the room. She tried to breathe slow, deep breaths, even as her heart raced and her stomach tied up in knots of sheer panic.

She could hear his heavy footsteps coming closer. He rounded the corner into the kitchen, and she lashed out wildly with the knife.

It stuck into the armor covering his chest. The Goblin looked down at it, somewhat amused.

"Lovely," he said.

With one hand, he pinned Mary Jane's back against the refrigerator, and pulled the knife from his chest with the other. He pressed the blade up against her neck, and leaned his face in inches from her own.

"I need you alive for right now, Mary Jane," he said. "So let's not do anything else that will make me want to kill you, okay?"

They heard someone else run into the apartment.

"Mary Jane!" a voice yelled. It was Peter Parker.

MJ's eyes went wide. She wanted to yell to Peter to warn him, but the Goblin still had the knife against her neck.

Beneath his mask, the Goblin smiled.

Peter rounded the corner into the kitchen. The Goblin pulled the knife away from Mary Jane's neck and thrust it at Peter's face. His spider sense kicked in and he ducked the blade at the last possible fraction of an instant.

Lowering his shoulder, Peter slammed his whole body into the Goblin's stomach, and they both tumbled to the ground. The Goblin dropped the knife as he grabbed Peter around the throat with both hands. Peter punched at the Goblin's face and struggled to free himself from the death grip.

Mary Jane picked up the knife and stood there, watching the struggle. She wanted to help, but with Peter and the Goblin locked in combat, she didn't know what to do.

Finally, Peter got in a good strong blow to the Goblin's face and he released his grip on Peter's throat. Peter turned to Mary Jane.

"MJ, get out of here! Get as far away as you can!"

The Goblin got in a return blow, decking Peter across the face.

"Peter, he'll kill you!" Mary Jane screamed.

"Just go! Run! Please!"

Mary Jane hesitated. Then she ran for the door.

The Goblin pressed a button on his left arm. His glider tore into the room through the ceiling and began to chase after MJ.

As it bore down on her, she ducked and it flew right over her head. Then it turned and opened fire, blowing holes in the wall and floor on all sides of her. She screamed and threw her hands over her head as her apartment came crashing down around her.

Her large bookcase teetered back and forth, and finally toppled over, landing on her foot. She could hear the nauseating "crack" as well as feel it. She fought back the tears of pain and she struggled to free her trapped foot, the glider still circling her, weapons armed.

Back in the kitchen, out of Mary Jane's view, Peter fired a web at the toaster and yanked it towards him. Then he smashed the Goblin across the face with it, knocking him senseless enough for Peter to get away and run into the living room.

As he ran towards Mary Jane, the glider fired off a hail of small bat-shaped spikes in his direction. He leapt into the air and twisted his body into a contorted, acrobatic pose that allowed the spikes to pass harmlessly by and imbed themselves in the wall. He landed beside the bookcase and lifted it up, freeing MJ's trapped leg.

No sooner had she pulled her foot out that the Goblin jumped onto Peter's back and pinned him to the ground again. He smashed Peter's face into the bookcase.

Mary Jane stood up and tried to run. As soon as her foot touched the ground it almost buckled beneath her. Her ankle was definitely broken. She didn't even bother fighting the tears any more as she began running on pure force of willpower.

As she made it out the front door, the glider began to chase after her. Peter fired off another webline, which snagged the glider and held it in place, immobilizing it.

"Now you've done it," the Goblin hissed. "You let her get away!"

He placed his hand over Peter's face, then released a blast of electricity from the armor. Peter was rendered unconscious.

The Goblin stood and hoisted Peter up by his shirt.

"Then again, you know what they say about a bird in the hand…"

The Goblin laughed the sickeningly blissful laugh of a man who has completely lost all semblance of his mind.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Clark Kent held Lana Lang tight in his arms as they soared high above Shuster's Field.

"Clark…" Lana whispered, her eyes wide like a little child's. "Why didn't you tell me you could fly?"

He looked at her… her beautiful dark hair blowing gently in the breeze, her soft lips slightly parted… He just wanted to kiss her and have that kiss last for all eternity.

"Because, Lana…" he said. "I couldn't… until you gave me wings..."

Knock knock knock.

"Clark," Lana whispered, leaning in closer to him. He could feel her breath against his lips. "Someone's at the door."

"Don't be silly, Lana, we're outside."

Knock knock knock.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "You really should get that. Someone might need you."

"Lana…"

Knock knock knock.

Clark's eyes opened slowly as the wonderfully sweet world of his dream faded into the waking world, and he found himself back on the sofa bed of his and Chloe's hotel room.

Someone was knocking at the door.

Clark quickly x-rayed the bedroom and saw that Chloe was still asleep, undisturbed by the knocking. He got up and went to the door.

He opened it to find Mary Jane standing there, doubled over in pain, propping herself up against the doorwell with one hand as the other grasped her ankle. Blood had soaked through her pant leg, and she was drenched from head to toe with rain water.

"Oh my God… Mary Jane, what happened?"

"Clark… Peter needs your help," she said, her voice high and shaky.

"We have to get you to a hospital," Clark said.

"No, please, listen to me. He's got Peter, the Green Goblin has Peter."

"Whoa… okay, slow down and tell me what happened."

"He… the Goblin just attacked me, and Peter tried to save me… and… oh God…"

It had obviously taken every last ounce of strength and determination that Mary Jane had to get her to Clark's door. She fell into his arms and burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

Clark gently put his arm around MJ and stepped out into the hall with her, closing the door quietly behind them so they would not wake Chloe. He looked around and saw that no one else was in the hallway.

"How did you find me, anyways?" he asked.

It took her a minute to compose herself well enough to form a coherent sentence. She pulled her face away from Clark's chest, his shirt soaked with her tears.

"P-Peter and I talked, after the night of the convention… he told me you guys were staying here…"

Her eyes were still welling up with tears. Clark tried to wipe them away with his index finger.

"If the Goblin has Peter, we need to call the police," Clark said.

"No," Mary Jane said, shaking her head. "They can't stop him, he's too strong… I've seen what he can do before."

"Then what do you want me to do?"

"You can stop him, Clark… I know you can."

"Me?"

She stared him straight in the eyes as she blinked away her tears. "I know you have powers, Clark."

"What! What're you talking about?"

"The night of the convention, the night you saved my life… when the ceiling was collapsing. It was going to cave in on top of me… but you… you ran in, out of nowhere, and held it up with your bare hands, over your head… Then you picked me up and carried me, through the all the debris and the flames and everything… I saw the fire come out of your eyes and burn a path for us through all the rubble…"

"I thought you were unconscious…"

"I know you did. But I wasn't. Clark… if anyone can save Peter now, I know it's you. Please, you have to try."

"I don't know. I want to help, but… isn't Peter friends with Spider-Man? He could probably do a lot more than I could."

Mary Jane looked down and closed her eyes. She shook her head again.

"Why not?"

"Clark… I shouldn't tell anyone this. He doesn't even know that I know."

"Know what?"

"Clark, Peter is Spider-Man."

Clark took a step back. "Peter… what!"

"Peter is Spider-Man. They're the same person. Look, he doesn't know that I know that… All I know is that he's in trouble and he needs help, and I don't know where else to go…"

She started crying again, harder this time. He took her in his arms again and let her cry into his chest.

"Okay," he whispered. "I'll help him. I'll do whatever I can."

"Thank you…" she whispered between sobs. "Thank you…"

He x-rayed her ankle. It was indeed broken. "I want to get you to a hospital first," he said. "That way, you'll be safe, and they can take care of your leg."

She nodded, weakly, and allowed Clark to pick her up.

"We have to stop at Peter's house first," she said as he started carrying her down the hallway. "There's something you'll need to get."

Clark didn't ask her what it was, because he was pretty sure he already knew. He was more concerned with how he was going to stop the Green Goblin. Or how he was going to find him, even. Then he remembered what Lex had told him at the hospital.

"Mary Jane," he said. "Who's Harry Osborn?"


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Peter gained consciousness again as he was being dragged through a long passageway. The Goblin was hauling him by his shirt collar down some kind of dark, musty corridor. His arms were tied behind his back, and his legs were bound as well. At full strength he could have broken his restraints effortlessly, but now he could barely move his fingers. The only thing he could feel was pain, throughout every inch of his body.

They continued their descent down the passageway. Peter got a vague impression of some kind of light up ahead of them. He thought he heard the Goblin whistling a tune of some sort, but he could not be sure if that was really the case or he was just that much closer to losing his mind.

Suddenly, Peter was thrown violently into a large, dome-shaped room as they reached the end of the tunnel.

They were somewhere far beneath the Osborn Mansion now, in the room where Harry had heard his father's voice for the first time since his death… first learned of his legacy as the Green Goblin.

Peter struggled to open his eyes, which were badly swollen. He wondered how long the Goblin had had him here already, and how many beatings he had endured in his unconscious state.

He realized he was not alone in this room. He was in the center of a semi-circle of people. Aunt May was there… so was Mr. Jameson, Mr. Robertson, and Mr. Urich from the Bugle, along with Miss Brant… Kids he had gone to high school with, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, they were there too.

All of them were on their knees, their wrists tied to their feet behind their backs. They all just stared at Peter, and at the Goblin standing behind him.

"I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today," the Goblin said. His voice didn't even sound like Harry's any more. It was sounding more and more like Norman's had, when he was the Green Goblin. "We are here to honor this man, who you see before you. Peter Parker, This Is Your Life!"

He kicked Peter in the back, forcing him face first onto the ground.

"…And Your Death!" the Goblin said with a wicked laugh. Everyone in the room recoiled in horror.

"Let the boy go, you miserable lowlife!" Jameson yelled. Good old Jonah… the man may not be a prince, but he was never afraid to speak up.

"Jameson," the Goblin hissed. "I'm glad I brought you here. You are unique among those in this room, as you are the only one that I am about to let live. Everyone else here is going to die, slowly and painfully, as Peter Parker watches. You, however, Mr. Jameson, will be set free when this is all over."

Everyone was looking at Jameson now.

"Why me?" he asked.

"Because," the Goblin said. "You are going to write about this. All of it. Everything that happens, you are going to publish in your rag of a newspaper, so everyone will know how the Green Goblin finally destroyed his greatest enemy, and how he will obliterate anyone who crosses his path."

Peter saw that Aunt May was crying.

"Please," she begged. "What in the world did my poor Peter ever do to you?"

"Ahhh… May Parker. You stupid old bag." He grabbed Peter by the back of the neck and hoisted him up again. "If you only knew…"

Now it was Flash's turn to speak up. "You better let us out of here, freak! I swear to God, I'll kill you, man!"

The Goblin let go of Peter and he slumped to the floor again.

"Wow, you really don't get it, do you, moron? You're not going to kill me. I am going to kill you, and everyone else in this room. It's really not that hard to follow, so try and keep up." The Goblin then kicked Flash in the teeth.

"Please…" Peter whispered. "Please just let them go…"

"Aww… did you hear that, everyone? Jameson, did you catch that? Are you taking notes? He wants me to let all of you go. How noble. A true hero to the very last."

The Goblin sat down on the floor next to Peter.

"The real problem, Petey, is how we're going to pick who goes first? Do you want to pick?"

Peter started to struggle against the ropes that restrained his hands and feet.

"I think that would be best, Pete, if you picked who gets offed first. It's really only fair, I mean, I certainly can't make that call."

Peter clenched his teeth and pulled against the ropes as hard as he could, but he couldn't break them.

"Come on. Either you pick… or I tell them."

"Harry, please…" Peter said.

The Goblin smacked him on the back of the head. "Now you know better than to call me that! That does it, you don't get to pick now… AND, I'm going to tell them."

The Goblin stood up.

"There is something that you really ought to know about Peter Parker before you all go to your early graves. And, Mr. Jameson, I think this will add a very nice angle to your article, certainly something of note in Peter's obituary."

Peter kicked and pulled and rolled around, tearing with all his might at the ropes that bound his hands and feet.

"You see, kids… I am not the only one who occasionally chooses to put on a mask and use a colorful nickname. Our boy Peter was doing that long before I was."

The Goblin folded his hands behind his back, and walked right up to Aunt May, sticking his face right in hers.

"YOUR NEPHEW IS SPIDER-MAN, LADY!"

Aunt May gasped, as did much of the rest of the group.

"Bull shit!" Flash yelled. "If he's Spider-Man, I'm the freakin' Green Lantern, man!"

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Jameson scoffed. "Peter works at the Bugle! Don't you think I would've realized if Spider-Man was on my own payroll!"

"You make an excellent point, Jameson," the Goblin said. He then rapped on J.J.'s forehead with his fist. "Then again, having read some of your editorials, I'm sure that I'm not underestimating your intelligence."

"Why you…" Jameson gritted his teeth and started struggling against his restraints.

"Look," Mr. Robertson spoke up. "It's awfully easy for you to accuse people of being someone else, while you hide behind a mask yourself."

The Goblin paused and considered this. "You're right, Mr. Robertson. Thank you. How foolish of me."

He reached up, and removed the latex mask that covered his face.

"Harry Osborn!" Liz Allen screamed. "Oh my God… was I ever right to dump you!"

Harry looked at Peter. "I think I just figured out who's going first."

"Harry…" Aunt May was flabbergasted. "Why?"

"Harry Osborn is what was. The mask and costume have become unnecessary. I am the Green Goblin now, plain and simple."

Harry made a gesture with his arm, and a blade popped out from the wrist of his armor.

"The time for talk is over. Let the ritual begin."

He walked over to Liz Allen, and grabbed her by her blonde hair, pulling her head back and exposing her neck.

"Osborn!" Mr. Robertson yelled. "Just one more question."

Harry's eyes narrowed and he glared as Robbie, Liz whimpering and praying at his feet.

"What is it?"

"If Peter Parker is Spider-Man… then who the hell is that?"

Slowly, Harry turned around. Peter Parker was still lying on the floor, his arms and legs tied as the Goblin had left him.

And yet, standing in the entrance to the passageway was a figure clad in the familiar red and blue webbed uniform of the wall crawler.

The Goblin let go of Liz's hair and she slumped to the floor.

"Who… are… you!" Harry screamed, his eyes wide with rage.

"Me?" the newcomer answered. "Why… just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!"


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Beneath the mask of the webbed wonder, Clark Kent was sweating bullets.

How in the world did I get into this mess, he thought. Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man? He actually talks like that? He'd cribbed the line from Mary Jane, who'd told him that the real Spider-Man had said it to her once.

"Impossible," the Goblin sneered. "I've seen beneath Spider-Man's mask. I know he and Peter Parker are one and the same."

"Um… well… I can explain that," Clark-as-Spider-Man said, trying to disguise his voice, and yet not really knowing how it should sound. "You're crazy."

MJ had told him that Spider-Man likes to crack jokes to keep his enemies off guard. Clark wasn't sure how well he was going to do at that… He'd gone up against some powerful enemies himself, but he tended to let his fists do most of the talking for him. He wasn't used to keeping a running dialogue going during a battle.

That, and the fact that he and Spider-Man didn't really have a lot of the same powers. Sure, they were both very strong and very fast… but Spider-Man didn't have heat vision, and Clark couldn't climb walls or shoot webs. In all likelihood, this wasn't going to be a very convincing performance.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," the faux Spider-Man said, hoping he could intimidate the Goblin into giving up, and this wouldn't even have to come to blows. "Just let everyone go, so uh… I won't have to get my costume dirty. You, um, wouldn't believe how much dry cleaning costs in the city!"

Clark looked at Peter, hoping to get some kind of cue as to how he was doing. Peter was just staring up at him, wondering if he was having an out of body experience, or if maybe he never really was Spider-Man and he was the one who was going crazy.

The Goblin just looked blankly back and forth between Peter and this apparent Spider-Man character. Then he raised his blade.

"Honestly? I don't care who the hell you are! I'm still gonna kill you!"

Then he charged blindly at Clark, thrusting his blade forward as he ran. Time to make this look skillfull… as the Goblin ran towards him, Clark used his super speed to sidestep his charging adversary, grabbing his arm as he ran by. Then he spun him around and redirected his path, sending him reeling into the wall. The blade stuck into the wall and the Goblin staggered, nearly falling over.

As Harry struggled to pull the embedded blade out of the wall and free himself, Clark ran to Peter Parker and ripped the ropes off his arms and legs.

"Peter," he said. "You free the others while I take care of the Goblin."

"Okay… Spider-Man…" Peter said, slowly, obviously still a little confused. He then got up and ran to his Aunt May, and began to untie her as well.

By now, Harry had freed his wrist blade from the wall. He retracted it back into the armor.

"All right, web head… let's do this properly." He picked his latex mask up off the floor where he'd tossed it earlier, and put it back on, hiding the face of Harry Osborn once more. Then he pressed a button on his forearm, and the familiar whine of the glider's engine filled the room. A hatch in the ceiling dropped open, and the glider sprang forth from it, swooping down to it's master.

The Goblin leapt onto the glider and it rose back to the ceiling. He then began to toss pumpkin bombs at Clark, laughing like a hyena as he did.

Clark ran around, deflecting the bombs as best as he could, trying to knock them into areas of the room where they'd do the least harm when they went off, as Peter was still trying to free the rest of the captives. He'd untied Flash Thompson next, who was helping him free the others. Regardless, the room shook with each explosion, and was slowly starting to fill with smoke.

"Goblin! Let's take this outside! I'm the one you want, not them!" Clark yelled.

"Spider-Man, you're so thoughtful," the Goblin said, tilting his head to the side in mock admiration. "You never want anyone else to get hurt, do you?" Another pumpkin bomb popped up into his hand. "Cry me a river… build a bridge… and get over it, you big baby."

Flash was helping Liz Allen and Betty Brant to the passageway. The Goblin reared back and threw the bomb straight at them.

Clark crossed the room between ticks of the clock, stepping through the wisps of smoke as they froze in the air around him, making it to Flash and the girls well ahead of the bomb. He caught it like it was a football pass.

The Goblin was stunned. He'd never seen Spider-Man move nearly that fast before. "How did you…!"

"I've picked up some new tricks," Clark said. "You should try it sometime."

He threw the pumpkin bomb back at the Goblin. It hit the glider and exploded. The flaming glider came crashing down, Goblin and all, and hit the ground with a loud metallic thud.

Clark looked back over his shoulder. Flash and the girls had made it out, and Peter was just helping his Aunt May into the passageway, with Mr. Jameson, Mr. Robertson and Mr. Urich all close behind them.

He turned his attention back to the flaming mess that used to be the Goblin's glider. The Goblin pulled himself from the wreckage and leapt forward out of the fire, screaming with rage and clawing at Clark through the smoke.

Clark grabbed the Goblin's arm as he swung at him. He hoisted the raving madman high above his head, then tossed him against the wall.

The Goblin wearily picked himself up off the floor, dazed and bewildered. "Whoo! What'd they put in your coffee this morning, Spider-Man?"

Clark towered over the Goblin. "You're outmatched, Goblin. Let's stop all this before someone gets hurt."

The Goblin rubbed the back of his head where it had hit the wall. "Too little too late for that. Besides, why should I throw in the towel when I still have the home court advantage?"

The room was already filled with smoke from all the pumpkin bombs, and it was getting worse due to the burning glider. The Goblin pressed another button on his arm, and dozens of explosives that had been hidden all over the room all detonated at once. Clark was actually thrown off his feet, and the Goblin burst into fits of violent laughter.

The room was ablaze now. Clark could survive it, but Harry couldn't. He grabbed the frenzied Goblin and made a break for the passageway, plowing through the flames and the smoke as the room was engulfed.

They charged up the passageway as a rush of smoke and heat followed behind them, racing upwards close at their heels. Clark made it out through the fireplace and into the living room of the Osborn mansion just as another explosion went off, destroying the passageway behind them just as they exited.

The Goblin reached around and grabbed the hand Clark was holding his arm with, and released an electric charge. This created feedback within the armor, and blew the Goblin free from Clark's grip, destroying the electric glove and part of the chest plate in the process. Clark was unfazed.

The Goblin got back to his feet and popped the blade out of his other wrist again. He lunged at Clark and jammed the blade into his stomach. The blade bent backwards and broke off, and pain shot up Harry Osborn's arm the likes of which he'd never known before. He screamed and fell to his knees.

"Harry, you need help," Clark said. "Let's get out of here, before the fire spreads to the rest of your house."

The Goblin held his wrist, moving it slightly back and forth, trying to tell if it was broken or not. He was pretty sure it was.

"Come on," Clark said, trying to help the Goblin to his feet.

"Go to hell," he said, pulling away. He pressed another button on what was left of his armor.

The skeletal remains of the glider charged up the burning passageway, still on fire and falling apart as it flew. It managed to launch a missile from somewhere inside it's scorched innards, just as Clark's fist connected with it, breaking the wrecked glider in two.

The missile hit Clark's chest and exploded, throwing him across the room and into a glass cabinet of fine china.

The Goblin took off running down another hallway. Clark pulled himself out of the broken cabinet frame, brushing the shards of glass off of himself. He was surprised to see that the costume was not really damaged at all.

Clark zipped down the hall after the Goblin, and saw him run into another room. He followed him.

They were in what looked like a master bedroom. The Goblin ran to a large dresser, and fumbled in a drawer for something.

Clark approached him cautiously. "Harry, listen to me. The fire is spreading, we've got to get out of the house, now. Come on, let's go."

Harry ripped off the Goblin mask once more, and threw it on the ground. "Hey, asshole," he said. "This one's for my father."

He pulled his hand out of the dresser drawer, holding a small handgun. He aimed it at Clark's face, and fired.

He could have dodged it, but he didn't. For some reason, he just took it. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because he could see the pain that Harry was obviously in, his eyes filled with tears, his whole body shaking. Clark had been shot before, but never in the face. It always stung, just a little, when a bullet would hit him… less and less each time, but he always felt it to some degree or another. Getting shot in the face stung quite a bit, actually. But for some reason, he took it, instead of dodging it, as if taking that little bit of pain was almost obligatory, given how much pain his adversary was obviously trying to shoulder all by himself.

Harry blinked in disbelief, as he saw Spider-Man remain standing after taking a bullet to the face. He looked at the gun, then back up at his enemy. Slowly and sadly, he shook his head.

"Sorry dad," he whispered. "I guess I failed you."

He put the gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

Clark knew from experience that he was faster than a bullet. He sprang forward the instant that Harry's finger began to apply pressure to the trigger, reaching for the gun. His hand inched closer to it… closer…

He closed his eyes.

BANG!

He opened his eyes.

The gun was in his hand. The bullet was embedded in the wall behind them. And Harry Osborn was wondering why he was not dead.

"Oh… God…" he said, his voice no longer sounding like the Goblin's, but rather like his own voice again. "I can't even do that right."

He put his face in his hands and began to cry.

Peter Parker walked into the room and stood in the doorway for a minute. Clark walked over to him.

"The fire department's here," Peter said. "They've got the fire under control."

They both looked at Harry.

"Peter," Clark said. "I think what Harry needs right now is a friend."

Peter nodded. "Yeah, I think you're right." He put his hand on Clark's shoulder. "Thanks for being there when I needed one."

Peter walked over to Harry Osborn, and just sat down beside him. Harry just kept crying.

"I'm sorry, Pete…" he kept saying. "I'm so sorry…"

"I know, Harry…" Peter said. "I know."


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Lionel Luthor walked into a large business room in the OSCORP factory, followed by Lex, who was awkwardly limping behind him on a pair of crutches. In the middle of the room, looking over some paperwork, was Jason Macendale.

"Mr. Macendale," Lionel said, outstretching his hand.

"Mr. Luthor," Jason replied, reluctantly accepting the handshake.

"It's come to my attention that your employer, the young Mr. Harry Osborn, is no longer, shall we say, fit to run a corporation of OSCORP's high regard. I was hoping that, under the circumstances, we could renegotiate my prior, and extremely generous, offer to buy the company?"

Jason rolled his eyes and let Lionel's words hang in the air like so much dead weight. "You don't waste any time, do you?" he replied, coldly. "The Bugle just broke that story this morning."

"Yes… it's a real tragedy," Lionel said, trying to hide a smile. "The poor lad, locked up in a mental institution."

"It's a rehabilitation center, Mr. Luthor. Mr. Osborn is getting the help that he needs."

"Yes, I trust that he is. Now, about my offer…"

Jason shook his head. "I'm afraid you're too late. OSCORP's board of directors has already elected to sell the company to another buyer."

Lionel's face fell. "What? Surely, you're joking."

"I'm afraid he's not," came a voice from behind them. "And don't call him Shirley."

Lex and Lionel turned to see a tall man with dark, slicked-back hair wearing a jet black Armani suit stroll casually into the room. He had one arm around a very attractive blonde, and the other around an equally striking brunette.

"Who the devil…?"

The man took his arm from around the blonde's waist long enough to shake Lionel's hand. "Bruce Wayne," the man said with a charming smile. "Wayne Enterprises."

Lex raised an eyebrow. "The Gotham City Bruce Wayne?"

Bruce winked. "One and the same."

"I thought I read you moved to Japan or something?"

"I did some traveling."

"What brings you back to the states?"

Bruce looked from the blonde, to the brunette, and then back to Lex. "You have to ask?"

Lionel leaned in close to Mr. Macendale. "I don't care what the hell he offered you, I'll double it," he whispered.

"I'm sorry, the deal is final," Jason replied.

Bruce was already distracted. He left his female companions and walked over to a large table where the two charred halves of Harry Osborn's Goblin Glider were resting, among various other items that had been pulled from the fire at the Osborn mansion.

"Our crew just had that stuff pulled from the wreckage," Jason called over to Mr. Wayne.

Bruce looked at it, fascinated. He pressed a button on the side of the glider's skeletal frame, and a single projectile shot out and embedded itself in the wall. Bruce walked over to it and pulled the projectile out and looked closely at it. It was in the shape of a bat.

He turned to Jason. "I want everything in this building packed up and shipped to Wayne Enterprises in Gotham City. Send the bill to me, personally."

"I'm afraid the glider and anything else from the fire is police evidence, Mr. Wayne. Someone is coming for it later this afternoon."

Bruce just smiled. "We'll work something out," he said, casually. Then he put his arms around the girls again. "Come on, um… what was your name again?" he said to the blonde.

She wrinkled her nose and giggled. "Heidi," she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Right…"

They walked out of the room, leaving behind a speechless Lionel and a very amused Lex.

Peter Parker and Clark Kent sat side by side atop the roof of the Daily Bugle building, staring out over the vast city below them.

"What's it like?" Clark asked. "When you… y'know… swing around on the webs and everything?"

"It's great," Peter replied. "The wind in your face… the city below you… sometimes, when I let go of a webline, I wait an extra second before I fire off another one… and I just soar through the air for a minute, and pretend that I'm flying."

"Wow… that has to be such a rush."

"It really is. Sometimes it's the best part of this whole Spider-Man gig."

Clark thought for a minute about what that must be like, to soar above the city like Peter got to do. He was actually a little bit jealous.

"So, what will happen to Harry now?"

"I don't know," Peter said. "They took him to this place called Ravencroft."

"I'm really sorry, Pete," Clark said.

"It's okay," Peter said. "There are people there who will be able to help him."

"Yeah, but still… I can't imagine what it must have been like to have your best friend try to kill you. That had to suck."

"Okay, I won't lie to you, that did suck," Peter admitted. "I hope you never have to go through anything like that, Clark."

They sat in silence again for a moment, just watching the people below them hustling and bustling about the busy New York streets.

"Clark," Peter said. "How did you know that I was Spider-Man? And how did you know to come help me?"

Clark just laughed. "Pete, I think you and Mary Jane have a lot to talk about."

He nodded slowly. "She knows, doesn't she?" He didn't really seem all that surprised. "I kinda thought that maybe she did. I wonder when she figured it out."

"There is something you should know… she's in the hospital. She ran all the way to my hotel room on a broken ankle the night the Goblin kidnapped you, because she thought I was the only person who could help you."

Peter was stunned. "Oh, my gosh… Wow, I really need to go talk to her."

"Yeah, I would say that you should do that."

"Does Chloe know about you? About your powers and all?"

"No," Clark said, "she doesn't. Although sometimes I wonder how long that will last, what with her journalistic instincts and all."

"Why don't you just tell her? I think you could trust her."

Clark shrugged. "I don't know. I don't want to burden her, I guess."

"Your powers aren't a burden, Clark. They're a gift. They are what you make of them… and I think you'll do really great things with yours one day."

Clark grinned. "Thanks, Pete. That really means a lot… especially coming from the 'Amazing Spider-Man'!"

Peter laughed. "Yeah, well… hey, we need to give you a name, too! And a costume wouldn't hurt either!"

Clark shook his head. "Oh, no… I've had my fill of wearing tights, thanks."

"We'll see," Peter said. "Believe it or not? You get used to them."

A few hours later, there was a knock at the door of Mary Jane Watson's hospital room. The door opened, and in walked Peter Parker with a bouquet of flowers.

"Peter!" she cried. She was so excited to see him that she almost jumped out of bed, despite having most of her lower leg in a cast.

"Hey, pretty lady," he said, handing her the bouquet. "How're you feeling?"

She brought the flowers to her nose and breathed in their sweet smell. "Much better now," she said. "Stargazer Lilies… they're my favorite!"

"I know."

"How?"

"You mentioned it, once."

"And you remembered? Wow…" Mary Jane blushed. "Peter… that's really, really sweet of you."

"Aw, you're welcome," he said, blushing a little himself. Then he added, "I guess we know all kinds of secrets about each other, huh?"

She looked up into his eyes. He knew that she knew... and he was okay with it.

"Yeah…" she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I guess we do."

Clark Kent sat beside Chloe Sullivan on their bus ride to the airport, thinking thoughts of their return to Smallville, Kansas. After spending a few days in the big city, they were more than ready to get home to their families and friends.

Chloe held in her hands that morning's edition of the Daily Bugle.

"Can you believe this?" she said to Clark. "This story that Mr. Jameson wrote claims that he was kidnapped by Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, and that he and some teenager named Flash Thompson outwitted them and somehow managed to 'escape their insidious clutches, and certain doom as well!' I mean, who in the world does he think he's kidding?"

Clark pointed to a smaller article below Jameson's story. "Hey… isn't this…?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Yes, it is… well, it SORT OF is the essay that won me this whole trip in the first place. Though apparently once Jameson realized it wasn't all anti-Spider-Man sentiment, he went over it with a fine toothed comb and edited out every other word. Honestly, with this on my resume I'll be lucky to get a job writing for the National Register."

Clark just laughed. He skimmed over the story that Jameson had written.

"Y'know," he said, "with all the bad press that Spider-Man gets, I wonder why he even bothers. If he's just going to keep getting slammed, then why does he do it?"

"Because, Clark," Chloe replied. "With great power, comes great responsibility."

Clark blinked a few times. "Wow. I like that… where did you hear it?"

Chloe grinned from ear to ear. "A little spider told me."


	16. Epilogue

Epilogue

Lex Luthor walked into his Smallville office, limping slightly. He'd stopped using the crutches much sooner than the doctors had advised, but he found that he got around much faster and easier without them.

He was surprised to find someone waiting for him in his office.

"Mr. Macendale," Lex said. "Thanks for dropping by… though I didn't expect you to come all the way out to Smallville."

Jason placed a small briefcase on Lex's desk. "I thought I should deliver this personally, Mr. Luthor. Frankly, I didn't think I could trust anyone else."

"Understandable," Lex said with a nod. "What've you got for me?"

Jason flipped open the briefcase, and removed a file folder which he handed to Lex. "These are all the details of your father's partnership with Norman Osborn."

Lex opened the file and skimmed it's contents. "How about giving me the Reader's Digest version?"

Jason folded his arms and leaned back against the desk. "About 20 years ago, your father and Mr. Osborn were tapped by a government agency to try and recreate the Super Soldier Serum that was developed by Dr. Erskine during WWII… the one that created Captain America. They tried for years, but were never able to succeed. Finally, in frustration, they abandoned the project and parted ways, going on to form their own separate companies."

"But Norman Osborn never really abandoned the project, did he?" Lex asked. "He kept trying to recreate the formula… and what he came up with was what turned him into the Green Goblin… and then Harry, too?"

Jason nodded. "That would seem to be the case."

Lex tossed the file onto his desk. "My father must have realized that Norman finally hit on something. That's why he wanted to buy the company so badly, so he could get his hands on the formula."

"That would also seem to be the case."

Lex sat down at his desk and folded his hands. "Mr. Macendale… I'm aware that my father made several very generous offers to buy OSCORP. And yet the company is now in the ownership of some airhead from Gotham City. Why didn't you accept LuthorCorp's offers?"

Jason took another document out of the briefcase and handed it to Lex. "Apparently Norman Osborn also figured that your dad would try to come after the formula. He had a legal contract drawn up years ago, before the formula was even finished, preventing the board of directors from ever selling the company to Lionel Luthor."

"You're kidding," Lex said with a laugh.

"Not at all. Apparently Mr. Osborn didn't care much for your father."

"I can't imagine," Lex said, dryly.

"He certainly didn't want that formula getting into Lionel Luthor's hands…" Jason said, reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He pulled out a vial containing a green liquid. "But… he didn't say anything about Lex Luthor…"

Lex leaned back in his chair, staring intently at the vial.

"There was enough residue left on the floor of the OSCORP sub-basement lab that a team of our technicians were able to recreate it," Jason continued. "This is the only specimen of the formula left in existence."

Lex held out his hand, and Jason gave him the vial. Lex held it up to the light coming in from the window behind them.

"How much do you want for it?" Lex asked.

"Take the price you're paying me for the information about your father, and add a zero to the end," Jason said.

"Done." Lex carefully placed the vial into the top drawer of his desk, and took out his checkbook. "Mr. Macendale, I think this is going to be the beginning of a very lucrative partnership."

Back in New York, General Nick Fury stormed into the main control room of SHIELD headquarters, followed closely by Agent Jasper Sitwell.

"What is it, Quartermain?" Nick demanded, lighting his cigar.

"Sir, we've finished analyzing the videotape of the Green Goblin incident," replied Agent Clay Quartermain. Clay sat at a computer console with several monitors, the one in the center showing an aerial view of a rooftop.

"Do we have a positive ID yet?"

Sitwell was confused. "Positive ID? On who… Don't tell me Spider-Man!"

"Don't be a fool, Sitwell," Fury said, puffing on his cigar as he slipped his lighter back into his pocket. "We knew Spider-Man's identity within 24 hours of his first appearance. We kept tabs on him around the clock for weeks. He's harmless."

Sitwell's mouth hung open for a moment or two. "Then… who?"

Quartermain ran the tape forward. "This tape was confiscated from a local news station that happened to have a chopper in the air during the recent Spider-Man/Green Goblin fight. Most of it's garbage, but… look at this."

He zoomed in on the lower right hand corner of the screen. Clint "Hawkeye" Barton was now clearly visible in the frame, setting up his bow and arrow for a shot at the Green Goblin on the next rooftop.

Clay stopped the tape, then began running it forward frame by frame. For a single frame, a blur of something streaking across the rooftop towards Hawkeye was visible on the screen. In the next frame, a young man was standing in front of Hawkeye, clutching the arrow to his chest. As Clay continued to run the tape forward, the arrow exploded in the young man's grasp.

"My God…" Sitwell whispered. "How fast was he moving!"

"It's impossible to clock him based on the tape," Clay said.

"For what it's worth?" Nick said. "I think the kid could give Quicksilver a run for his money. Now, come on, Clay. You didn't call me in here just to watch this tape, I've seen it already."

Clay fiddled with the controls a little more, and the screen zoomed in even tighter, locking in on the young man's face.

Another monitor lit up, displaying a headline from a newspaper called The Smallville Ledger. The headline read, "Local Teen Discovers Caves." It was accompanied by a picture of the same young man.

"His name is Clark Kent," Clay said. "He lives in Smallville, Kansas."

"Where the hell…?"

"Sir… the hostage that the Green Goblin had that day, during the fight? He was later identified as Lex Luthor. He's also currently residing in Smallville."

"And the plot thickens," Fury said, slightly amused. He took a long, slow drag of his cigar. "Gentlemen… let's get a team together. We're going to Smallville."

The End…?


End file.
